


the call of yesterday

by MargaritaDaemonelix



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Byleth teaches all three houses, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama And Trauma (tm), Female My Unit | Byleth, Gen, Introspection, Multi, Thales can meet me in the pit, Time Travel Fix-It, a disassembly of canon really, a slower burn than the giant three wick candles that you get at bath and body works, everyone loves the gatekeeper, loose ties to other FE games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 121,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22169272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaritaDaemonelix/pseuds/MargaritaDaemonelix
Summary: “I told you to stop,” Sothis hisses. “I told you that you’re about to reach your limit.”“That’s alright,” Byleth tells her. Wipes away the blood. Raises her sword. “As long as they’re safe.”/child, time hath become thy enemy. || in which Byleth tries to fix everything, one more time, and inherits a broken land along the way.(updates every other Thursday!)
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg & My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth & Sothis, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 363
Kudos: 678
Collections: Quality Fics





	1. has it dawned on you yet

**Author's Note:**

> nobles of every house, we now have [a discord server!](https://discord.com/invite/WW2WmCt)

_"This isn't a new game anymore,"_ Sothis says.

She sits at the base of Byleth's throne in the mist, bare feet dipping into a stream of stone long forgotten. _"You'll tire yourself out,"_ she chides. _"Do you think it's fun to play god? Does it amuse you? Have you forgotten how to be human?"_

"I just," and here Byleth's voice chokes up, smoke pouring into her lungs, "I just want them to live."

Sothis smiles, but it's no longer friendly. _"Then live,"_ she declares, voice as cold as snow, _"and don't come crying to me when you no longer want to."_

(The world swimming in neon and the shrill scream of a girl too young feels all too familiar now.)

* * *

Byleth raises her sword without even thinking, and the axe goes flying just ahead of its owner. Kostas crashes into the the grass swearing and spitting, and she takes the opportunity to turn around and make sure Edelgard is alright.

It gives her whiplash to see Edelgard so young, brandishing a dagger with fear and a steady, practiced grip. "Thank you," Edelgard says, and scoops up her own axe. "Truly."

"Hey, over here!"

Claude and Dimitri come jogging up, and they too look much too young to be on a battlefield, and out of fear or maybe habit Byleth grabs her own hair and finds the strands dark in her hands. Her father rides up, alive and whole, and guilt and grief swallow her vision.

They're here, alive, all of them, and she cannot fail them this time.

“Everyone still in one piece? Good riddance.” The hand that her father puts on her shoulder is a comforting yet surprising warmth as the world reels around and around once again. It’s been so long since she last turned her back on the future, and yet she’s been here so many times that it feels like she’s returning to some kind of a home in itself. 

Then there’s the familiar sound of Alois’s yelling over the fields, and even from where she stands Byleth can see him in her peripherals, each white-clad footstep accompanied by the telltale _clank-clank-clank_ of armor. “Captain Jeralt!” he shouts, and it only barely muffles out the “ugh, why him?” that Jeralt mutters under his breath.

_“Captain Jeralt?”_ Claude whispers. _“The Captain Jeralt that Alois and Leonie won’t stop yapping about?”_

_“Have some respect for Alois,”_ Edelgard snaps, though the strangled look on her face betrays her thoughts on the man.

And maybe it’s the banter between her father and his subordinate or the childish whispers between the students, but Byleth has sorely missed this. She can’t remember the last time she sat down by a campfire to watch her father prepare cured meats, or the last time she got to hear the voices of her three dear friends chattering together. As the night settles in and everyone starts to pitch their tents and call it a day for their travels, Byleth realizes she’s tired of war.

“You should talk to those three,” her father tells her when she approaches him, tipping his head vaguely in the direction of the second fire pit. “They’re not much younger than you. Seems like an interesting bunch.”

“They’re students.”

“Aren’t we all.” He ruffles her hair fondly, like he always did when she was younger. “They’re what, seventeen? That was you, not long ago. Go ahead. It’ll be a nice change of pace.”

And indeed, it really is for Byleth the mercenary. The heiress to the throne of the Adrestian Empire; the crown prince of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus; the next grand duke of the Leicester Alliance. She’s standing among giants, people who will hold more power in their lives than she could ever dream of. She ends up taking her seat on a rock by the fire, hands folded delicately in her lap as she stares into the flames and pretends not to care.

The others _(her friends, once upon a time)_ study her like it’s the first time they’re meeting her, which she supposes they are. They hide their curiosity behind prim posture and indifference and smiles, not knowing that Byleth can read them like open books.

She's been here before. _She's been here before._ The world threatens to drown in flames and moonlight, and she forces herself back to the world of the waking.

"Thank you," Edelgard says, the only one bold enough to break the stifling silence, "for saving our lives. I for one truly appreciate your help back there. Your skill is beyond question."

Byleth dips her head in silent acknowledgement.

"You're clearly an experienced mercenary," she continues, a certain excitement in her tone. "And your father, is he truly... Jeralt, the Blade Breaker? Former captain of the Knights of Seiros. Oft praised as the strongest knight to ever live... Have I missed anything?"

"I wouldn't know," Byleth says, lies. "He speaks little of his past."

"How curious." There's something very tender in Edelgard's gaze that pierces right into her soul. "I'd wager the explanation for that is interesting indeed."

Claude stretches out, more relaxed now that there’s a conversation going. "Hey, you _are_ coming back to the monastery with us, right? _Of course_ you are. I’d love to bend your ear as we travel.” He grins impishly. “Oh! I should mention, the three of us are students at the Officers Academy at Garreg Mach Monastery. We were doing training exercises when the bandits came. I _definitely_ got the worst of it.”

“That would be because you ran off,” Edelgard snipes.

“Too true!” Claude puts his hands up in mock surrender, like he’s admitting to all his supposed crimes. “I was just making a strategic retreat. Everything would’ve worked out, too, if _these two_ hadn’t followed me and ruined everything.” He sighs, shaking his head disappointedly. “Because of them, every single one of those bandits came after us. Utterly ridiculous.”

Dimitri smiles. “Oh, so that’s what you were thinking, Claude. And here I was, thinking you were being a decoy for the sake of us all.”

“His intentions were as clear as day,” Edelgard scoffs. “You will prove a lacking ruler if you cannot see the truth behind a person’s words.”

“And you will prove a lacking ruler _yourself_ if you look for deceit behind every word and fail to trust those who you rely on,” Dimitri challenges. 

Claude moves to break them up, but Byleth moves first, reaching into her travel pack. Her guilty pleasure has always, _always_ been candy—it’s one of the few luxuries they can afford on the road, as travelling mercenaries. “Are those marshmallows?” Edelgard asks, almost wistfully.

Byleth nods once, tipping the bag of powdered treats towards them as a silent offering. As mature as they might be, it’s still a fond reminder that they’re still kids to see them scramble to obtain sharp sticks and line up, red and blue and gold, to take a marshmallow. Claude brings her one, and she takes it gratefully and impales her marshmallow on its end.

A log breaks and a million sparks fly into the night as she sticks her marshmallow into the tips of the flames and slowly turns it over. On the other side of the fire, sugary pandemonium erupts, and it is massively amusing to watch. Dimitri’s marshmallow melts too quickly and about half of it falls directly into the flames. Edelgard turns over her marshmallow slowly and elegantly, and yet when she pulls it out to examine it the treat is already charred and still on fire. Claude hovers his marshmallow over the fire, and it puffs up but never quite caramelizes.

She looks back to her own marshmallow, which has gained a crisp golden colour, and plucks it off the stick. Her fingers are burning, but hey, it’s sugar.

(If there’s anything that Sothis approves of, it’s her taste in treats. Candy has always been a common ground for the two of them, regardless of what kind of path they’ve taken.)

“Woah, that’s a really well-toasted marshmallow,” Claude chimes, still turning his marshmallow slowly over the fire. It still hasn’t browned. “Care to share your methods?”

“I, too, would like to learn,” Edelgard says, brushing the blackened skin off her marshmallow and taking a nibble of the gooey insides. “Although I fear the answer will come with time and practice.”

Byleth shrugs. “Take it slow,” she advises. “If you let it hover over the fire, the marshmallow will become crisp. It’ll puff up and melt.”

As if on cue, Claude’s marshmallow drops off the stick and splatters into the nest of logs, where it is presently consumed by the flames. “Huh,” he says, examining the remnants of the marshmallow on the stick.

“And if you’re too hasty to push it into the flames, it will easily burn,” she continues, “or melt. Marshmallows are rather fragile things.”

She demonstrates again, poking three marshmallows onto her stick this time. “Find a middle ground,” she says, “and maintain it.”

Triumphantly, she pulls the stick from the fire, and with it three golden marshmallows, wisps of smoke still trailing behind them. Claude starts clapping, and then the other two join him. Byleth gives a little bow from her seat. “Enjoy,” she says, handing the stick over.

“Wait, where are you going?”

She looks back at the fire. “Someone’s got to keep watch for the night,” she says. “Get some sleep. We’ll head out in the morning.”

And if they find that statement troubling in any way…

Well. They’ll have plenty of time to tell her, where they’re going.

* * *

There are a few things that Byleth remembers of her past ~~lies~~ lives:

  1. In her first life, Byleth chose the Golden Deer. Drawn in by Claude's easygoing smile, she ventured to Derdriu and Merceus and everywhere in between. She remembers the exhilaration of flying a wyvern for the first time. She remembers bringing her sword down on people she once called her friends, and she remembers feeling so, so small as that hill turned to crimson flame before her. She remembers the poison, placed carefully in her goblet at the triumph feast, and she remembers the way her dear friends all tried so hard to keep her breathing as it blossomed in her lungs and stole the life from her veins.
  2. In her second life, she taught the Black Eagles. She directed Edelgard and her friends to victory in battle after countless battle. She remembers being asked to travel to Enbarr with her, but not having the time to do so on account of the papers she had to grade. She remembers accusing Edelgard of destroying the nation with her tyranny when the mask fell. She remembers being taken quietly under Rhea's wing. She remembers catching a falling body in the cathedral. She remembers becoming one herself, the crown upon her head snatched before it could shatter on the ground below with her.
  3. In her third life, she tried again. She thought Edelgard could be convinced to go down another route, thought that Edelgard had something in mind. She was right on many counts, and watched her dear friend be coronated as emperor in a silent ceremony. She remembers the countless nights she spent planning in Enbarr, only to awaken with a red cloak draped over her shoulders. She remembers fighting Rhea, the very same Rhea who gave her life, and she remembers being batted aside by one silver wing as Edelgard screamed out her name—
  4. In her fourth life, she turned a blind eye, and chose the Blue Lions. She walked through ice and fire with Dimitri, and watched him lose all sight of the future. She remembers hearing another side of the story, and then watching how that side of the story brought the world crashing down around her unchecked when they met Edelgard in Enbarr. She remembers _remembering,_ that awful moment when it was Edelgard's axe slicing cleanly through Dimitri's neck instead of his glaive plunged into her chest. She remembers the wild look in the Imperial assassin's eyes as they drove the knife directly into her unbeating heart.
  5. Sothis pitied her the first few times, but gods can only really laugh at mortals in the end.



* * *

Claude does, in fact, bend her ear as they travel to Garreg Mach. With her father and Alois leading the way, she trails behind with the students, observing their banter and interjecting when prompted. The stories they tell are ones she can recite in her sleep, for all the times she’s heard them, but it’s entertaining all the same to simply listen.

And though she’s sure she has fond memories of skirmishes and missions aplenty, it’s become harder and harder to discern them from those of a future avoided, so she remains silent on her part. As Claude delivers the punchline to a story about Ignatz, Lysithea and a box of matches, she cranes her neck above the forest path in search of a tower and a home.

“So that’s why Hilda isn’t allowed in the general store in town anymore,” Claude concludes with a grin. “We never did get that poor shopkeep’s name.”

“Speaking of names,” Dimitri interjects, still struggling to keep a straight face, “I’m sorry, I don’t think we ever got yours.”

It dawns on Byleth that they’re speaking to her. “Byleth Eisner,” she tells them. She does not offer her hand to shake. Mercenaries do not shake hands with royalty in broad daylight, after all.

“Daughter of the famed Jeralt Eisner,” Edelgard says, admiration tinting her voice. “Oh! Where have my manners gone?” She straightens herself out, demeanour changing from a girl to that of an emperor in an instant. “I am Edelgard von Hresvelg, heir to the throne of the Adrestian Empire. It’s been a pleasure to meet you.”

“And I am Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, crown prince of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.” The worry eases from his shoulders as he assumes his full height, towering nearly a head over Byleth. “I apologize for my late introduction.”

Claude grins, and something like devastation crashes through her bones when she recognizes it as a curated defense mechanism rather than a genuine smile. “I’m no fancy royalty,” he says, _and isn’t that a lie she recognizes,_ “but I’m Claude von Riegan. Current heir to the leading house of the Leicester Alliance. Charmed to make your acquaintance.”

_It’s a test,_ she figures, continuing to walk. The three lordlings watch her in anticipation, breath halted for the moment she’ll cast her dice and pick her side. She’s done that already. She’s picked her sides. She’s _done_ picking sides now.

“I didn’t realize I was walking among royalty,” she says, and amends it with a quick “and high nobility” when Claude makes a face. “Should I be bowing?”

This is met with laughter. “No, I fear that would be unnecessary,” Dimitri says. “We attend an academic institution alongside individuals of all backgrounds. In the classroom and on the battlefield, we are all equals.”

“In that case, if anything, I believe we should be bowing to _you_ ,” Edelgard adds. “Your prowess with a weapon is simply unparalleled. Which is why I must ask you to please consider lending your services to the Adrestian—”

“Edelgard, please allow me to finish my own proposition,” Dimitri interjects. “The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus is in dire need of individuals like you—”

“Woah, woah, both of you, hold on!” And just like that, Claude is there once again, a somewhat unreliable source of damage control that resurfaces in times of need. “Don’t you think it’s a bit tactless to recruit someone you just met?”

“It has been a night,” Edelgard points out.

“And we just learned her name two minutes ago!” The road turns smooth, and the midday sun starts to drain through the trees. Claude kicks aside an errant pebble and flashes a grin at Byleth. “I was personally planning on making a deep and lasting friendship on our way back to the monastery before asking for any favours. And speaking of the monastery…”

The final line of trees melts away like marshmallow fluff, and then Garreg Mach is the only thing left looming above them, serene and surreal in its majesty. The echo of the midday chime rings through the air as they leave the forest behind. Byleth hasn’t dared to call this sprawling complex of church and state home in what feels like an eternity, and if she’s honest, she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to.

But despite everything that’s happened here, all the blood, sweat and tears shed, it’s still Garreg Mach, and in her heart of hearts she _knows_ she belongs here.

“This will be your first time in the monastery,” Dimitri murmurs, offering a rare smile. “I’d be happy to show you around.”

“It really is Fódlan in a nutshell,” Claude muses, “the good and the bad.”

“Like it or not, we’ll be there soon enough.” There’s something vacant in Edelgard’s stare as they continue to make the trek up the mountainside, but the fondness of her smile says more. “There it is.”

Byleth inhales sharply. In another life, this was her kingdom come. Now, it is simply the beginning.

_“Garreg Mach Monastery.”_

* * *

It’s clear from the moment Byleth walks in that _no one_ can come to a consensus on what they think of her.

Her father, of course, is instantly placed back into the Knights of Seiros, though not punished for leaving in the first place. Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude are dismissed to dine with their friends, and Byleth has the sinking feeling that were she not occupied here, she would likely be coerced into picking a table to sit at with them. 

_(That can’t do, now can it? You said you were going to make_ everything _right this time, and that means not taking a side. Be glad that dearest Rhea has her sights set on you.)_

So now the problem arises as such: Rhea wants her to teach a class. Seteth does not want her to teach a class. Her father also does not want her to teach a class, but Rhea mentions a name that Byleth can't put a face to, and he immediately goes silent. The other faculty members and clergy in the cathedral look like they want to escape before it all escalates out of hand.

As a source of mild consolation, Flayn stands at her side supportively, looking as bright as ever. "I'm sure my brother will warm up to you in due time," she whispers excitedly. "I think you'll like it here."

"Archbishop Rhea, I understand that you have a great deal of trust placed in Jeralt Eisner," Seteth says (with Flayn mimicking in grandiose fashion with heavy gesticulation, as one does) as Rhea paces up and down the steps to the altar, "but his daughter is barely older than Flayn. I don't doubt that she's just as capable in combat as he is, I really don't, but she has yet to even speak a word since her arrival!"

Rhea only smiles serenely and turns on the top step. "Come, child," she says, and even though she's not religious in the slightest Byleth can feel the aura of kindly charisma surrounding her. "Why, Byleth Eisner. It really has been too long."

On the other side of the dais, her father flinches before taking his leave. Seteth watches him leave with an air of contempt and mild exasperation. 

"You were only a wee babe when I last saw you," Rhea sighs, placing her hands on Byleth's shoulders. "It really has been a long time." She smiles kindly. "Tell me, would you like to teach? Or would you prefer to join your father in the Knights of Seiros?"

"Archbishop Rhea _please—"_

"Peace, Seteth. It is not my decision to make." There are practically stars in Rhea's eyes now; for all that she is the Archbishop, she looks about as excited as Flayn. "Well, dear child?"

"I would prefer to teach."

"Then teach you shall," Rhea declares, "and so I must guide you into the capable hands of my wonderful professors." In a single elegant motion, she catches both of Byleth's hands in her own. There are sword calluses, worn and not-quite faded, across her palms. "Perhaps this is a conversation better had in the academy."

Hence begins the strange procession: Rhea practically frog-marching Byleth through the cathedral and the hallways, Flayn following excitedly behind, and Seteth tailing at the end with a scowl on his face. They march up the stairs to the ever-familiar staff room, where Manuela and Hanneman immediately jump to their feet as soon as Rhea opens the door. 

"My dear professors Casagranda and von Essar, I must introduce you to the newest addition to the academy staff," Rhea says. "This is Byleth Eisner, daughter of Jeralt Eisner. She'll be joining you in the new school year as an instructor at the academy."

"Ooh, this one's a keeper!" Manuela squeals. "Manuela Casagranda, darling. Singer, healer, professor." Her grin only smells vaguely of alcohol. "And single."

"Ignore her." Hanneman offers her a hand, which she shakes once. "I am Hanneman von Essar, professor of Crestology. Welcome to the Officers Academy."

“Thank you.”

“You will be joined by a few other instructors over the course of the year, though not all of them have arrived here yet from their prior posts,” Rhea continues warmly. “Now, there is much of the curriculum that we have to explore, and quite a bit to cover, but I’m sure Professor Casagranda is more than happy to explain it to you.”

Manuela seems exceptionally delighted at this. “Oh, certainly!” she trills. “Oh, it really is simple—a few essays here, a bit of higher-level calculus there—but I’m sure you’ll catch on easily. The combat part of the curriculum really is the harder part, I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone!”

Byleth blinks. "I am… happy to take up this post," she says, and Rhea beams. "But I do have a condition."

"Name it, and it will be yours."

"I can't teach calculus." It’s a confession made with no loss of pride; what’s there to lose in stating the truth? "I'm numerically illiterate. You'd have to find someone else competent in numbers to teach it."

It's so silent that Byleth can hear Manuela tapping her fingers on her dress. "You… come again, dear child?" Rhea prompts, with a furrow in her brow for the first time. 

"I won't teach math. I can barely write legibly, let alone form academic essays." She leans back on the wall. "Please do not expect me to teach those courses.”

There is a split moment of silence before the shouting begins between the faculty and clergy, and Byleth seizes the opportunity to abscond out the door before someone gets a hold of an inkwell and starts swinging.

* * *

"So I presume Rhea is still letting you teach," Jeralt muses, blowing across his soup spoon. 

Byleth shrugs, dropping into her seat across from him. “Seteth was not pleased,” she says. “But no one can do anything about my inability to do calculus.”

And it’s only the truth. Byleth has never been good at learning math, let alone teach it. A lot of her older lesson plans were just “do whatever”, “pray” and “free period”. A quick assessment from Hanneman only served to confirm her suspicions: she has mild dyscalculia, which explains quite a bit about her (lack of) ability to barter for prices. On the bright side, it’ll save her a lot of trouble in the long run.

It only goes to show how terribly _unqualified_ Byleth really is to teach. She’s never had a formal schooling, with all of her academic skills taught to her by her father or his band of mercenaries. Her only license is a license to _kill._ She’s a mercenary, not a professor. She’ll wrestle bears and guide armies to victory and wield any weapon with deadly accuracy, but _Sothis forbid_ she teach calculus.

She never did like pretending to make lesson plans.

“Sounds like Seteth.” He takes a sip gingerly, wincing at the taste. “Ugh, it feels like they’re still using the same recipes from twenty years ago. The chefs here never learn, do they.”

“You’ve been here before.”

“That I have.” He sighs. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you, kid, and a lot of that overlaps with dirt you don’t need on your grave.” The soup spoon clatters back into the bowl. “You wanna trade?”

Byleth looks down into her own tray, with its assortment of steamed vegetables and roast pork, and to the thin soup of spinach and egg in her father’s bowl. “Not really,” she says, and relishes in the rare oasis of his laughter.

Later, Flayn directs her to her assigned room in the dormitories. “I’m sorry about my brother,” she says abashedly, even though Byleth has told her time and time again that she shouldn’t apologize for his actions or beliefs. “He can be _so_ stubborn sometimes.”

“It’s alright.” The room is just as Byleth remembers: quiet, sturdy, and incredibly empty. She runs her fingers over the desk, almost amazed to find it smooth again as opposed to the scores of scars she left over it in other lives. “It was a reasonable concern to have. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“No problem!” And just like that, Flayn is back to her lively self. “If you ever need anything, or even just a fishing partner, don’t be afraid to tell me!” She smiles from the door. “Good night, Byleth!”

“Good night.”

The echo of the door’s creak is the last sound in the night. Byleth walks over to the window and closes it silently before throwing her bedroll onto the bare mattress and dropping into her desk chair with a huff.

_“Tired already?”_ Sothis asks. _“It wasn’t long ago that you were their teacher.”_

“Hmm. Just not used to fighting the faculty for the sake of not teaching calculus.”

_“Someone else will take up the reins.”_

“Then let them.” Byleth stares the ghost of the progenitor god in the eye, unblinking. She’s always been good at that. “I’ve played my part for now. All I can do is wait.”

Sothis shakes her head. _“You’ll work yourself into an early grave, Byleth Eisner,”_ she says in a low voice, _“and you’ll burn Fódlan down to its foundations while you’re at it.”_

And as she retreats back into her spiritual plane, leaving the room empty in the candlelit night, Byleth can’t help but be scared that she’s right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new year, new fic, new disaster in the making  
> so I know the whole thing with FE3H is that no one is innocent in war and y'know there's a whole lot of sacrifices to make and that's why we'll most likely not get a "Revelations path", so to speak, but I'm also a sucker for happy endings and so here we are. this fic carried me through NaNoWriMo and has been in the works since basically just after the game's release, and I'm super happy to share it with the world!  
> special thanks to my dearest friends Param and Makurophage for beta-reading, Dar for supplementing my planning with the actual game, Roy for getting Dar the game (seriously bro how do you acquire an extra copy of an $80 game) and weeping tears of blood with me, and most of all thank you to Emile for not only beta-reading but matching all of my screaming/fic planning word for word. I continue to drink loving my friends juice by the bucket  
> in lieu of updates I'm currently aiming for once or twice a month, but that said I'm also simultaneously updating two other fics (one weekly and one monthly) in a very different fandom. come talk to me on Twitter @TequilaFreeeee - I swear I don't bite!  
> ~Marg


	2. when one door closes another opens directly into your face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth tries to teach a class.

The Officers Academy of Garreg Mach Monastery is home to a wide range of students from across all of Fódlan, representing many socio-economic classes and nationalities. It’s birthed some of the greatest tactical minds and wisest leaders over the years, including many legendary rulers of all three nations it serves. It hosts classes for an extensive, balanced curriculum, honing its students into academic and combative powerhouses.

It is also singlehandedly the biggest breeding ground for rumours in all of Fódlan, easily surpassing even the royal kitchens of Fhirdiad.

The news spreads like wildfire: a new professor, someone that the faculty _literally_ found in the woods. Notes are passed; whispers and giggles are contained. Some say that Seteth threw a great fit upon the arrival of the new professor. Some say she was handpicked by Archbishop Rhea. Some say she rescued a few students in the woods from bandits.

Some say she’s very young, practically the same age as the students. Some say she’ll be easily bent to their will, coerced into letting them slack off. Everything about her is speculated: her nationality, her height and weight, the number of siblings she has, which house she’ll be teaching. A joke floats around that she can’t do math, but it is quickly laughed into obscurity.

Of course, they’re only just rumours. The grapevine grows miles upon miles of leaves but never grapes, and all anyone can do is wait for classes to begin. There must be training for the new professor, of course, and a curriculum developed—Lady Seiros above, a _curriculum._ The anxiety of the new school year starts to override the excitement of the new professor, and the rumours are replaced by an endless stream of questions. Will she be a hard marker? Will she dock marks for sleeping in class?

(“Shouldn’t Linhardt be the one asking that?”

“Yeah, but he’s napping.”)

And they laugh their troubles away over midnight snacks in the mess hall, not noticing the curious eyes of a girl not much older that follow them longingly.

* * *

Byleth is really not having a good morning.

First she’s awoken abruptly at sunrise by Sothis, who then starts to mock her for sleeping late the night before. She manages to get dressed despite still being half asleep, pricks herself on the business end of her lapel pin, and nearly faceplants in the fireplace before realizing she can just get breakfast in the mess hall. It’s a small miracle she’s able to procure a plate of eggs and bacon for herself without tripping over the hem of her own jacket.

After splashing her face with cold water and then taking an even colder bath (she makes a note to pick up some of that nice lavender soap the next time she’s in town), she’s a bit more awake, and significantly more attentive to the state of her notes from the night before. Her curriculum, freshly revised and heavily written against Seteth’s will, is contained in a single impressive sheet of parchment, written out in her thin, spidery hand. Her four attendance sheets for the four classes she’ll be teaching throughout the day are stacked underneath.

All that’s left to do is to teach her first class.

Of course, because this is the Officers Academy, there is a healthy stream of students in the hallways. The dormitories start to get loud around eight-thirty, which is when she figures she should start to head to class. It’s barely a ten minute walk to class, which starts at nine, and what, she’ll only need to take one detour to grab some chalk from the staff room.

And of course, because this is the Officers Academy, she gets stopped no less than nine times in the hallway:

  1. Almost immediately after she leaves her own room, she bumps into a priest, who, not realizing she is _not_ in fact a student, reprimands her for breaking dress code _on the first day of class, no less._ It takes many wild gestures for the priest to notice her stack of attendance sheets (personally signed off by Archbishop Rhea!) and let her continue.
  2. Upon turning a corner, she crashes directly into someone's chest. She is then helped to her feet by the poor boy, who she vaguely recalls to be from the Black Eagles. A few girls nearby show concern for her outfit, presumably because she is not wearing the uniform. She thanks them and moves on. 
  3. Catherine stops her in the hallway and dress-codes her for not wearing the uniform. She shows her signed attendance sheets. Catherine stares, says something like "oh wow you're not a student," turns beet red and runs right back into her own room. There is faint screaming to be heard from inside afterwards. 
  4. A door opens into her face while she's walking through the hallway, and she's promptly knocked to the ground. The flock of students that emerge from that room do not notice that she is on the floor, but somehow she is not stepped on. They are almost certainly late to class at this point, as is she.
  5. She is cornered in the staff room for five minutes by Seteth, who makes it very clear (as if he hasn't already) that if she damages the reputation of Garreg Mach Monastery in any way, Archbishop Rhea be damned he will kick her out himself. She acknowledges this with a curt nod, grabs her chalk and duster, and runs. 
  6. She gets stopped by a matron, not for a uniform infraction, but because the elderly woman doesn't think she's eating enough. She hurriedly excuses herself, though she gets the feeling that she's about to be forcefed more than she can stomach by the dining hall chefs in the upcoming months. 
  7. Then she gets dress-coded again, this time by Gilbert. The attendance sheet doesn't convince him at first; he's half convinced that she must have stolen it or something when a thankfully-sober Manuela comes by to save her. Gilbert apologizes profusely for another solid minute. She’s able to escape with a strangled “don’t worry about it” the moment she’s able to edge a word in.
  8. Thankfully, some students are able to recognize her as an instructor and not a fellow student, although she’s willing to bet that this won’t last. Ignatz runs up to her, Leonie and Raphael in tow, to ask where a certain classroom is. This is in fact the class that Byleth will be teaching in two minutes, but she gives them directions nonetheless, and they scamper off with a word of thanks.
  9. And of course, she gets dress-coded one final time as she's trying to enter _her own damn classroom._ This time she just gives the offender a dead look and utters "I'm _teaching_ this class" before turning on her heel and pushing her way into the room. 



All chatter instantly dies the moment she steps in. They've already seated themselves by house—the Black Eagles to the left, the Blue Lions in the middle, and the Golden Deer by the windows on the right. She looks over her class of twenty-four, and mentally muses that this is the first time she's managed to get all three of the house leaders in a single class. 

Silently, she unpacks her attendance sheets, plucking out the one for this particular class. It's sorted alphabetically by last name; she stares at it, then at her class, and briefly entertains the idea of not even reading out names before realizing that she's already terrifying the students enough. 

_Maybe I can relish in being the weird, young professor instead of being the strict one for once,_ she thinks, recalling all the new things she plugged into her curriculum. Yes, it sounds like a solid plan. To reinforce her new goal, she seats herself cross-legged upon the desk at the front of the room, and a hushed whisper of disapproval and reverence ripples through the students.

"Well, you're all here," she says out loud, "so I might as well get started. I'm the new professor. You may have heard many rumours about me, or perhaps spread some yourself. I can tell you right now that you can safely ignore all of them.

"As you can see, I will not be your house instructor for this year. I am merely here to take pressure off Professor Casagranda, Professor von Essar and Professor von Hrym. I will be instructing all three houses in the art of combat over the course of the year."

She shakes the parchment in her hand to smooth it out. "Ferdinand von Aegir," she calls. 

"Present," comes the (admittedly nervous) response. 

She continues down the list, rattling off the names of the twenty-four students she’s gotten to know the most in the classroom and on the battlefield over the years. Manuela had quipped earlier that this class is basically just the three house leaders and their inner circles, which really hits pretty close home if Byleth is being honest. It is amusing, though, to hear the horror and confusion among the students grow as she stares down the attendance sheet without even bothering to associate faces with names.

(She already knows all of them, much better than many of them know themselves. It’ll be funny once she starts calling them by their correct names.)

“Now that we’re done with that, let’s go through the syllabus,” she says out loud, replacing the attendance with her diligently-made curriculum. It’s probably one of her greatest achievements to date. “Your mark in my class will be composed of multiple components, the biggest of which are an exam mark, a performance mark, an assignment mark, and a presentation mark.”

She goes through the breakdown bit by bit, reading out the various parts of the syllabus as they come in play. Her students shift uneasily in their seats; she’s suddenly reminded that they don’t actually know anything about her yet, because they’re still young and this is the first time they’re meeting her.

“You will be given time to work on the presentation in both your classes and in mine, but any and all experimenting with combat types will be done here or in the courtyard.” She drops the sheet and straightens her back. “Any questions?”

Silence. The students look around at each other apprehensively, none of them willing to meet her eyes. Edelgard seems to steel herself and takes a deep breath. “Miss von Hresvelg,” Byleth calls.

“How would you like us to address you… ma’am?”

It dawns on Byleth, a little belatedly, that only the house leaders know anything about her. Sighing, she digs through her pocket, finds a piece of chalk, and hops off the desk to write her name on the blackboard in huge, swooping letters. “My name is Byleth Eisner,” she says. “Call me whatever you please. I’m not exactly qualified enough to be a “professor”, but I’m qualified to teach all of you. Professor Eisner works. Miss Eisner also works, I’m not married. Hell, call me by my first name. Even a _hey you_ works.”

She sweeps over the class one last time. “Questions, anyone?”

As expected, no one even _breathes._ Byleth drops the chalk back in her pocket. “Grab a training weapon,” she announces, picking up a wooden sword from the barrel behind the door. She gives it an experimental swing; the _whoosh_ that follows cuts through the silence like it’s butter. “Melee, preferably. We’re going to start with some exercises in the courtyard.”

No one moves. “Well?”

The resulting mad scramble for the door is chaotic, and Byleth resigns herself to the fact that this will be her life from now on.

* * *

“We’ll be starting out simple today,” Byleth announces, gesturing to the newly-equipped class before her. “Partner up, spar for eight minutes, rest for two, switch partners. We’ll do three reps of this cycle and reconvene. Try to spar with someone you haven’t spoken with before.”

Naturally, the last line of this goes unnoticed as friends pair up with friends and terrified glances are cast all around. Soon, there’s dust being kicked up on all sides of the courtyard as Byleth walks between the sparring pairs, observing their forms closely. After what she _presumes_ is eight minutes, she calls for a break, and they spring apart and laugh and clap each other on the back, as friends tend to.

“You have a good grip,” she tells Felix as she passes by him. He freezes in the middle of mopping away sweat, and she swears she can hear Sylvain whisper “oh Seiros” from where he’s sprawled out on the ground. “Your stance is a bit tight, though. Try to loosen up.”

The problem with having taught all three houses before is that she _knows_ everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. Sure, it’s been a long time since she last worked with the Black Eagles and longer still with the Golden Deer, but a quick glance at the students refreshes her memory easily. Lysithea is still clumsy with a sword, but she still shows great promise. Dorothea has a decent swing despite her hesitation to take the offensive.

So now she has to go around, pretending it’s the first time she’s seen these kids grow as she observes them in their fighting. She supposes it adds to the mystery surrounding her, and chalks it up as a personal win for her reputation as the weird young professor. As she walks between the students, complimenting their forms and pointing out some of their weaknesses, she can hear the whispers behind her: _how did she notice all that? How is she so observative?_

“Good work, everyone,” she says. “Let’s switch it up. Try to pair up with someone from a different house this time.”

A few anxious glances are thrown around, but no real attempt is made to mingle. No one even tries to make _eye contact._ It’s practically tragic to watch, and it’s only now that the full scope of the national segregation between the students of the Officers Academy becomes apparent. _They’ve never ventured outside their own houses,_ Byleth muses in her mindspace. _Am I really breaking that many barriers?_

 _“It’s how they’ve been for hundreds of years,”_ Sothis reminds her. _“The world is not prone to change.”_

Thankfully, it’s about then that Annette does her best confident smile at Petra, who responds in kind and moves across the courtyard to join her. Sylvain peels himself off the ground to crack a joke at Hilda, who laughs and swings her ax in his direction playfully. Lorenz and Hubert exchange a few cordial words before they join the sparring pairs in action.

Byleth watches all of this from afar, knowing well enough that it’s never safe to get in the way of a spar. She steps aside when Ashe and Marianne clash blades a little close, and acknowledges their frantic apologies with a nod. _They’re the ones who have changed this world, time and time again,_ she tells Sothis. _If any real change has happened to Fódlan in the past few hundred years, they’re the catalyst._

For once, Sothis seems deeply pensive and in appreciation of her two gold. _“No,”_ she argues, _“if anything has changed, you’re the catalyst.”_

The second round of sparring opens up conversation between the students, and Byleth is glad to see them chatting among themselves between rounds. It also opens the way for different combinations of students, which is what she’s trying to get at with this lesson. She holds back a wince as Dedue and Bernadetta’s swings miss each other completely, getting them both knocked onto their feet. This is accompanied by laughter, though, and for Byleth, relief.

“Alright, let’s bring it in!” she shouts. The wave of exhaustion is palpable, but every single student sports a bright smile as they approach. “Leave your weapons where you are. Hands on your heads, take a walk around the courtyard. You’ve all exceeded my expectations.”

She’s glad to see the new groups of friends that seem to have formed. Felix is giving advice to Hubert on pacing his breathing as Lysithea and Annette chatter together about spells right behind them. Mercedes patches the scrape on Raphael’s knuckle with a tap and a kind smile. Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude walk together at the back of the group, comparing fighting styles and the ways in which they were trained as children.

Good. She’ll have them help her demonstrate, then.

The gathered student body takes their seats in front of her as she ties back her hair loosely to keep it out of her face. “As I’m sure you’ve realized,” she starts, “there’s a lot more to any fight than to just learning the strategies of your opponent. Did anyone encounter any specific difficulties in sparring?”

Sylvain raises his hand. “Mr. Gautier,” she calls, and is met with apparent awe from the class.

“We needed to keep the environment in mind,” he says. “There was dust all around, so it obscured visibility.”

“Excellent.” Briefly, Byleth wishes she had a blackboard outside, but realizes it would be terribly unwieldy. “Using the environment to your advantage is a huge part of combat, and we’ll be going over it in detail later in the year. Anyone else?”

This time, more people raise their hands, though she suspects it’s because they want to test her knowledge of their names. “Miss Macneary?”

“We were having different weapons and different wielding forms, so it was difficult in predicting the next move.”

“Correct. And this is just in a spar of physical melee weapons, so I’m sure you can imagine what it’s like when ranged and magical weapons are brought into the fray.” She picks her practice sword up off the wall and gives it another experimental swing. A few of the students in the front row _flinch_ when it cuts through the air. “You’ll be exploring the aspect of style more in the presentation aspect of the course. Good. Mr. von Riegan?”

Claude beams at her. “We had to account for differences in height and build,” he says. “Otherwise it’s way too easy to get swept off your feet in an instant. Landed myself in the dust a few times because of it.”

“Good. Any height is an advantage on your side if you can play it correctly. I don’t want any of you thinking you’re at a disadvantage because you’re too short, or you’re too tall.” She scans through the class before her. “Miss von Hresvelg, Mr. Blaiddyd, Mr. von Riegan. I’d like to demonstrate this principle with the three of you.”

A little warily, the three of them approach. “As you can see, we form a spectrum of four different heights.” She gestures wildly at the top of Dimitri’s head, and then across the huge gap to Edelgard. A few students laugh. “However, this just means we have advantages in different ways. Consider the following. Mr. Blaiddyd?”

Dimitri steps up to her, and they cross weapons. “Notice how I have less arm space to build up momentum,” she notes, demonstrating a mock swing, “and of course there’s an element of intimidation associated with height. Mr. Blaiddyd, do not hold back against me.”

He nods, and they whirl into action, wooden blade against wooden blade. Each blow pushes Byleth back, and she has to force herself into a swing just to stay standing. The tide turns, though, the moment she goes on the offensive, dodging from blows rather than parrying and using the open space left by his swings to catch him off guard. Her next hit goes flat across his shoulder blades, and he yields with a muted “ow”.

“I apologize for that,” she tells him. “But you see my point. I appreciate that you made good use of the tail end of your lance.” He exhales sharply, acknowledges her words with a nod, and moves aside to straighten out his back. “I laid out what Mr. Blaiddyd’s advantages are. Now, let’s compare that to if I were to fight someone shorter than myself. Miss von Hresvelg?”

The spar with Edelgard is just as she expects: fast as lightning, with nary a moment to breathe. The Adrestian fighting style keeps Edelgard in flight the whole time, but even so, Byleth is just as vicious, whaling on her with the practice sword in the few moments when she’s moving slowly enough to be caught. A clip across Edelgard’s ankle sends her sprawling, and she gets to her feet with a grim smile and wipes the dust from her brow.

“As you can see, in this case Miss von Hresvelg had the advantage of being smaller,” Byleth says without breaking a sweat. “And most notably, the advantage of being _faster._ Speed is on your side when you have control over the battle. I’d also like to call attention to the use of space—you did a fine job of using your size to duck away from blows, Miss von Hresvelg.

“Now let’s consider a third situation: what if your opponent has a similar height to you?” She stares up at Claude, who is still a decent ten centimetres taller than her. “My apologies, Mr. von Riegan. I’m just as unlikely to grow as you are to shrink, and you’re already here, so we might as well do the demonstration.” This is met with a wave of laughter.

It’s not hard to make quick work of Claude, especially since he’s definitely more familiar with a bow than with a sword. That doesn’t mean he’s not skilled, though—the way he flicks his sword upwards is less effective with a wooden training sword, but with a curved blade Byleth can see how it would be swift and lethal. Nevertheless, she twists through and knocks the sword out of his hand, leaving the tip of her blade at his sternum as the poor training weapon crashes to the ground a short distance away. He puts his hands up in mock surrender, and she pulls away.

“If you know your enemy isn’t that much different from you in build, then you know their weaknesses and their strengths. Use your strengths against their weaknesses. That’s a key thing to remember in any fight.” She looks at the three house leaders in turn—Dimitri, then Edelgard, then Claude. “Thank you for helping me demonstrate. Professor Casagranda will help you with any injuries you may have sustained from this experience. This goes for all of you, by the way.”

 _“Seiros above, how is she doing this with a straight face,”_ Hilda whispers to a rather stunned Marianne. 

Byleth pretends she doesn’t hear it. “We’ll be going over the idea of advantage this week,” she continues, “and there will be more sparring, so it goes without question that you should bring your training weapons. We’ll start to work with magic the day after tomorrow, so if you’re more comfortable with a tome, bring it in. By the end of this week I expect all of you to know each other’s names. Furthermore, if you have any questions, my office hours are five to eight-thirty today.”

She scans them once over again. There’s an immediate aura of exhaustion among them, but she’s glad to see that the smiles outnumber the frowns. “Now get going. I have more classes to teach.”

A wave of relieved chatter starts to wash over the students as they filter back indoors to grab their books and leave. Byleth lets go of a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “One down,” she mumbles, reaching up to the back of her head. Curiously, her hair tie is missing, and her hair loose across her shoulders. She must have lost it somewhere in the spar.

“Professor Eisner!”

Edelgard comes running, with the hair tie in hand. “I apologize, I believe I knocked this out of your hair,” she says, flushed, as Dimitri and Claude approach as well. “Thank you for that lesson, Professor. It was very invigorating.”

“We’ve never had any instructor teach us in such an animated manner,” Dimitri adds, “nor with such fluidity and confidence. To put it quite frankly, you kicked our arses.”

“I do have a lot more experience than you three, unfortunately,” Byleth says, gratefully accepting the hair tie. She’ll need to wash the dust out as it stands. “My father tells me I was able to wield a sword before I began speaking.”

Clearly, this comes as a delightful surprise to the house leaders, because they glance at each other and immediately laugh. “You don’t say a whole lot, Teach,” Claude points out. “But it’s always nice to hear when you do speak.”

“Thank you.” She turns away abruptly. “Now please. My office hours are open tonight if you wish to speak about anything.”

The chorus of responses leaves her more satisfied than she cares to admit. “One down, three to go,” she sighs, watching their retreating figures. They’re chatting happily among themselves, for once not about schoolwork or politics. She thinks she can hear laughter from afar as they grab their belongings and head to their next classes.

(She swears then and there, not for the first time nor for the last, that she’ll do anything to make that laughter last.)

* * *

“There she is,” Hilda says, gesturing with her spoon. “Oh, is she going to come sit with us?”

“Doesn’t seem like it.” Mercedes puts down her fork. “It seems our new professor already has a seat. Wait, Leonie darling, isn’t that…”

“Lady Seiros above, that’s Captain Jeralt!” The quiet little fist pump that Leonie does only shakes the table a little. At least three hands lurch out to stabilize her plate before it can rock itself off the table. “I _knew_ I remembered right when she said her name was Byleth _Eisner!_ She’s the daughter of the Blade Breaker!”

Ingrid prods the chicken on her plate distastefully, and goes for a carrot round instead. “Sounds like you admire him a lot,” she says wistfully. “A hero of sorts?”

Leonie nods animatedly. “He’s the greatest knight ever to have lived!” she says, practically bouncing in her seat. “I never would have guessed from how different our professor is from him.”

Hilda whistles. “Tell me about it,” she says. “Man, Professor Eisner sure is weird, isn’t she? We’ve never had a _presentation_ mark in a _combat_ course! I didn’t even catch half her syllabus, to be honest.”

“Hilda, we all know you’ll just talk Claude or Lorenz into finding her during office hours and getting a breakdown for you.”

For her part, Hilda does not deny the accusation.

“I like her emphasis on collaboration,” Ingrid offers. “It’s interesting to see fighting styles outside of those from Faerghus. Leonie, you backhand your sword a lot more than I’d expected. I’ve never seen anyone switch grips so quickly.”

“And I’ve never seen anyone pivot so gracefully into a parry,” Leonie says. “Huh. Maybe Professor Eisner _is_ onto something here.”

Mercedes sighs. “I just hope this doesn’t last too long,” she admits quietly. “I’ve never been particularly strong with any physical weapon, and I keep having the grip knocked right out of my hand. Maybe I should just stick to healing for the most part.”

“Don’t say that!” Hilda reaches over and pats her cheek affectionately, to which Mercedes flushes. “Professor Eisner said we’re bringing magic into the fray in two days, which means we’re bound to do magic studies too. Then you’ll be the one outpacing us by leagues!”

And they laugh and laugh into the evening, little flocks of students conversing despite being complete strangers just hours before, not noticing the fond gaze of a girl not much older that follows them endearingly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think about the nine times Byleth gets stopped in the hallway a whole lot, and i think about how stupid both her outfit and the Garreg Mach uniform are. i also think about the fact that Byleth literally knows the names of Everyone at this monastery and so she probably doesn't even need to "do" the attendance, but she's gotta do it anyways because Rhea needs the paperwork.  
> also please keep in mind that i am not in fact trained in actual swordfighting! i know a metric ton about how swords are made! please talk to me about blacksmithing! but in all honesty i can shoot an arrow and that's about it. my strengths are in bow, brawling and eating too much salad  
> in regards to Byleth's role as a teacher, she takes on a role similar to i guess Jeritza in canon, in that she teaches only combat. however, and i cannot stress this enough, her focus is actually on tactics. i've been writing out her actual teaching curriculum separately, and i think it's gonna be spectacular!


	3. cat got your tongue?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The house leaders discover the wonders of office hours.

This is how Byleth’s evening goes after classes:

At 4:30, her last class for the day ends. She answers Natalia Grimaldi’s question about the upcoming assignment, and directs Cosimo Hanson to Manuela for his magic burns. Most of the other students don’t linger behind for long, and the few that do are pleasant company. She’s not fond of the boys who always sit in the back row and make rude comments at the girls, but she can do little more than tell Hanneman to reprimand them.

At about 4:35, the classroom becomes empty save for her. She gathers up all of her remaining papers and evacuates before Manuela can come in with her last class of the day (a healing elective, it seems; Mercedes always waves at Byleth when she comes in, and Marianne offers a small smile from the back of the room) and start testing her vulneraries on her. She learned her lesson the hard way the last time she tried to sit in on the class for longer than two minutes, and she’s not about to subject herself to that again.

At 4:37, she’s in the dining hall, grabbing a light snack of fruit or perhaps some fresh bread. The chefs seem to be on a quest to make her eat as much as humanly possible, and she hasn’t had the courage to tell them that she keeps candy in her room to nibble on. She tells herself it’s healthier to supplement her diet with fruity snacks rather than sugary ones.

At about 4:40, she gets terribly distracted by the cats in the courtyard. Dogs are more of her father’s thing; she remembers a border collie always following her father around when she was younger, but she’s fairly certain that it passed when she was about eight or so. The strays at the monastery, though, are affectionate and will paw at her for blueberries and chunks of apples. The bombay with the white diamond on its chest mushes its face into her palm even when she doesn’t have treats, while the tabby ragdoll and the Siamese play with her swinging sleeves. Sometimes she’ll notice students watching, transfixed, in her peripherals, and ignore them entirely in favour of the cats.

At about 4:55, she remembers she has office hours, and runs to class with three disappointed strays on her heels. Seteth doesn’t like it when she has three felines trailing after her on her way to class, so she has to slip indoors carefully without them making it in. It’s quite the task, seeing as they’re much more persistent than most of the faculty or students give them credit for.

At 5:00, Byleth crashes into her room, grabs the sign that indicates her office hours are open, and slaps it on the door. The trek from the classroom to her room is _definitely_ not a five-minute walk, and it’s a small wonder she can make it back in time. She plunks herself down on the desk chair, leans forwards, and sighs.

No one really comes to her office hours, unfortunately. She’s informed them, time and time again, that she’s willing to sit down and offer them candy and chat over just about anything, but not even Lysithea has come to speak. It just becomes three and a half hours of occasionally talking to and getting scolded by Sothis, though it does make for a good nap.

She checks the mechanical clock on the wall, scribbling out the positions of the hands in her palm to make sure she hasn’t gotten the time wrong again. _5:01._ No students yet. The hallway is dead silent.

Sighing, she grabs the rest of the blueberries from her bag, props her feet up on the desk, and seriously considers going back out to play with the cats.

* * *

“I still don’t think this is an appropriate time to be asking this,” Dimitri says, shoving his inkwell into his bag. “Aren’t office hours meant for students who are failing in their respective classes?”

“Not according to what Professor Casagranda said, no.” Edelgard looks around the corner, squinting down the hallway as she beckons the other two forward. “Office hours an an open time for students to communicate with their teachers. They’re open without the need for an appointment. Besides, if _we_ don’t ask, as house leaders, what kind of example are we setting for our peers?”

Claude snorts. “She’s got a point, your princeliness,” he says. “Everyone and their mother has been asking about Professor Eisner’s combat syllabus. It’s almost _legendary_ at this point.”

“Here.”

They stop in front of a door. _Professor Byleth Eisner,_ it says on the dangling chalkboard, in the same loopy lettering from yesterday. _Office hours open._

“Who’s gonna knock?” Dimitri whispers. Edelgard huffs and knocks three times sharply with her knuckles.

Silence. There’s not even stirring from inside. Edelgard knocks again, a little more hesitant this time. “Maybe… maybe this was a mistake,” she concedes, met with silence once more.

“Oh, it’s you three.”

All three of them jump. Behind them is Professor Eisner, arms full of… cats. The tabby ragdoll lounging across her shoulders trills in what must be amusement. “Not a word of this to Seteth,” she says, and for the first time she looks even a _little_ embarrassed. “Congratulations, you three. You’re the first ones to ever come to my office hours.”

“We are?”

Professor Eisner nods, sighing. “No matter how many times I tell my classes that my office hours are open to all students at all times, none of you seem to come. It’s a very lonely three hours in here. I thought I might bring back some little friends to accompany me.”

She gestures at the door roughly with the two cats in her arms. “The door’s unlocked.”

With not much place to sit in an office that doubles as a bedroom, Professor Eisner ends up sitting on the desk with the bombay in her lap. Edelgard takes the desk chair as well as the Siamese, and Dimitri and Claude are seated on opposite ends of the bed petting the ragdoll. “I’d offer you candy, but I’m afraid my stash has run dry,” Professor Eisner says unapologetically. “Now, please tell me where I’ve failed as your teacher.”

Edelgard startles in her seat for a moment. The cat on her legs meows defiantly. “I’m sorry, Professor, what do you mean?”

“If you’re coming to me with questions, it means I’ve failed to cover something in class, or I’ve made something difficult to understand.” For a moment, she seems very small, sitting crosslegged on her desk with the cat in her lap bopping her hands for more pats. “Is it the magic absorption theory?”

The three of them exchange wary glances. “Oh no, absolutely not,” Dimitri says, “I quite enjoyed your lecture on it, and it was fairly easy to understand. It’s the syllabus that’s giving most of us a hard time.”

“I don’t think anyone bothered to copy down the syllabus, because we’re so used to marks being defined by exams only,” Claude says. “The idea of a presentation mark is completely alien to us.”

Professor Eisner stares at them incredulously. “I… apologize,” she finally manages, blinking away the apparent shock. “I should have put more thought into the repercussions of changing the curriculum so much. Yes, I will go over the curriculum with you. Thank you for bringing it up.” She looks around behind her, and hands them each a sheet of parchment and a book for a hard surface. “You may want to write this down to share with your peers.”

So they do, twisting to avoid upsetting the cats. Dimitri offers a spare quill from his bag to Edelgard, who can barely even reach her bag. “Alright. What was your previous curriculum?” Professor Eisner inquires, grabbing an ink-stained sheet from where it was pinned on the wall. “Or rather, how was the weight for your marks distributed?”

“It was limited to two bins,” Edelgard says. “I believe fifty percent was allocated to a final exam, and twenty-five percent each to two certification exams. The final exam was given by the professor, while the certification exams are standardized across Fódlan.”

“That sounds brutal,” Professor Eisner says. “If you fail one of those, you lose so much of your mark.”

“You really do,” Claude murmurs, with all the air of someone who’s suffered through the previous curriculum and has no intention to repeat said suffering.

“Well, I’m happy to let you know that your marks in my class will _not_ be entirely reliant on a few exams, but they do make up a large bin.” She turns her sheet around; the words _EXAM MARKS_ are written in large letters and underlined, with a glorious _30%_ next to them. “Half of your exam mark will be a final exam, while the other half will be split into as many certification exams as you pass, for a maximum of three.

“You also have an assignment mark of thirty percent, with five percent being an essay.” This is met with winces all around. “It won’t be long. I despise essays myself. The other twenty-five of assignments are follow-ups to monthly missions, and those won’t be hard. You also have a performance mark of twenty percent, which is based on your activity in class and your dedication to detail and good form.”

“That… is vague,” Claude says.

Professor Eisner shrugs. “It’s meant to be,” she says, which isn’t terrifying at all. “Most of your peers don’t have any battlefield experience. I’ve been in more skirmishes than I can count.” She rustles the paper with one hand, giving the bombay cat scritches with the other. “The remaining ten percent goes to the presentation. This was partially my idea and partially Professor Casagranda’s. She’s surprisingly passionate about history.

“The presentation will be a group project, and frankly I do not care if you form a group with someone from a different house. You and your peers will form teams of two to three to research and present a historical, legendary or mythological figure and their fighting style.” She plucks another sheet off the wall. “Some of the example topics I have here are the mythological figure of Azura from the Valla Cycle, the battlefield compatibility of King Alm and Queen Celica of Valentia, and the historical use of the Triangle Attack by pegasus teams.”

She looks up from her paper. “Any questions?”

The three house leaders look almost queasy in their seats. “We’ve never done anything even remotely like this before,” Edelgard says, forcing a little laugh into her tone. “It sounds _incredible,_ and quite interesting to research even, but it’s just so… new, honestly.”

Professor Eisner raises an eyebrow. “If it’s too much, I do have plans for _alternative teaching methods,”_ she says, and it’s chilling to hear the venom in the words. “I can teach the traditional combat subjects instead—brawling, authority, swordfighting, the like—and we can stick to the original mark breakdown—”

“No, that’s fine,” Edelgard squeaks, “thank you, Professor.”

And even though Professor Eisner doesn't smile, the blank look fades a little and is replaced by something fonder. "Good." She throws a quick glance at the clock on the wall. "It's nearly eight, you three should grab a bite to eat before the mess hall closes."

"Uh, Professor? It's almost _seven."_

She glares at the clock again, spelling out the positions of the clock hands in her palm. "I suppose," she says. "Well, stay or go if you wish. No one comes to my office hours typically, so it has been pleasant speaking to you three."

Dimitri beams at her. "And here we were, thinking that office hours were for students who were failing the course."

"Absolutely not." The look in the professor's eyes is resolute. "If anything, it's your chance to tell me where I've failed as your teacher. I get to know what I need to teach and how I need to teach it. Even if you just want to talk about the weather, you can come in at any time during my office hours."

"That's good to know," Edelgard says. "Thank you, Professor Eisner. I hadn't thought of it that way."

"It's just something to keep in mind. I have a lot of time on my hands since I'm a combat instructor and not a homeroom instructor, so I should use that time to improve as a teacher." A pause. "Please pass the news on to your peers. I have been very lonely in my office. I _will_ restock the candy."

"You don't have to, Professor," Claude assures her, getting to his feet. '"Thank you for answering our questions. We'll be sure to pass the information along. And thank you for the, uh, cats." The ragdoll purrs appreciatively. "Do you want us to bring them back outside?"

"I think I'll let them keep me company a bit longer," Professor Eisner says. "I assume the three of you are off to dinner with your friends?"

They nod. "Don't let me keep you waiting, then. Have a nice evening."

"You too, Professor!"

Books and parchment and quills are exchanged and put away, and then they're bowing on their way out, with Edelgard depositing the Siamese on the bed and Claude giving the ragdoll one final belly scratch. "Stay safe," Professor Eisner says. 

The door closes, leaving the three house leaders standing confusedly in front of their combat professor's room. "Well, that was certainly very strange," Dimitri comments. "Oh, Edelgard, there's fur on your shirt."

"There's fur on all of our shirts." She dusts it off all the same with an errant hand. "I do confess, though, I took her more for a dog person."

"She looks like she'd have a border collie," Claude agrees. "Not… three stray cats."

"They are just strays, right? Not her own cats?"

"She's a mercenary. I don't think she'd adopt monastery strays so quickly after settling down here."

There's a shriek from inside the room, as well as the mad scramble of paws and the falling of a heavy book. "Guess she's not adopting those cats anytime soon," Claude mumbles, and they book it for the dining hall.

* * *

MARK BREAKDOWN

**EXAM** —30%

\- CERTIFICATION EXAMS—3 x 5% = 15%

\- FINAL EXAM—15%

**PERFORMANCE** —20%

**ASSIGNMENT** —30%

\- ESSAY—5%

\- OTHER ASSIGNMENTS — 25/10 FOR EACH OF THEM

**PRESENTATION** —10%

* * *

The Black Eagles’ common room is typically peaceful in the evenings; today is no exception. Ferdinand is reading in the plush chair by the fireplace as Dorothea quietly explains magic absorption theory to Petra. Bernadetta is holed up in her own room again, and is probably asleep already. Edelgard slips between desks as she enters, and the entire room snaps to attention in an instant.

“Well, I went to speak to Professor Eisner,” she says, “during her office hours. She has informed me that we are to _attend_ her office hours for any concerns, and that they are _not_ only for students who are failing the course but for everyone. She has also provided a more detailed breakdown of her syllabus, which I will now copy onto the blackboard.”

When Edelgard takes up the chalk at the board, a shot of adrenaline rushes through her limbs, like static in her fingertips. The honour of being able to pass this crucial information to her classmates—the joy! She’s never felt prouder to be a house leader.

“Professor Eisner also explained the presentation that we were all so concerned about,” she says, erasing a crooked letter. “It will be a group project for groups of two or three, and she has mentioned that we do not need to work within our own houses for it.” Linhardt finally stirs in his sleep; she taps the chalk on the board loudly to bring him to attention. “However, it will be toward the end of the year, so there is no rush to form groups just yet.”

“How interesting,” Hubert muses. “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“Well, Professor Eisner isn’t exactly like any other instructor we’ve ever had,” Dorothea says. “She must be around the same age as Professor von Hrym, I presume? Perhaps a bit younger. It’s entirely possible she’s younger than sweet Mercedes.”

Caspar snorts. “She’s too weird to be younger than a _student_ here!” he says, gesturing wildly over his head. “Our first class with her, she just _sat on a table_ and started talking at us! And then she goes and kicks _Edelgard’s_ butt in a spar—”

“Language,” Hubert mutters.

“Professor Eisner is odd,” Petra says, and tries again. “Strange. Weird. Do you have a word for people with strange mannerisms?”

“Eccentric,” Dorothea says. “I’ll write it down.”

Petra nods. “Thank you. Professor Eisner is eccentric, but she has the incredible strength. We were seeing her defeat Edelgard in sparring, but it would be unwise if Edelgard were defeating her.” She wrinkles her nose. “Is the phrase… the student has become the teacher?”

“That is correct, Petra,” Edelgard says. “Both the phrase and your analysis. If Professor Eisner were to be unable to hold her own in a battle, then she would not be here teaching us. And from what I’ve seen and experienced, she is _very_ capable of holding her own.”

“She looked rather small and fragile when we first met her,” Ferdinand says, setting down his book to ease a sore on his back. “I can’t say I’m glad to have been proven wrong. Her backhand is absolutely vicious.”

Edelgard nods. “She’ll be a good teacher of combat for us,” she says. “Her methods are unconventional, but it’ll be a good change of pace from the schooling we’re used to. Many of our previous instructors were only trained in the theory of war and not the practice. Professor Eisner was raised in a mercenary band. I’m sure there’s much we can learn from her.”

And even though Professor Eisner has a blank, almost soulless stare and no emotion in her tone, Edelgard feels like she’s found a kindred spirit. A mentor, yes, but also really just a girl not much older than she is. Even in the brief time she’s spent talking to Professor Eisner, it seems like there’s so much to learn from her, both in terms of life and battle. It’s wishful thinking, but Edelgard _knows_ she’ll want someone to guide her through the ordeals of ruling the Adrestian Empire, and she _knows_ Professor Eisner is the right person for the role.

(She wonders if Professor Eisner will be able to see through the web of lies woven tightly around her, or the web of scars that hiss and sting on her skin.)

* * *

“So the presentation isn’t entirely combat, nor is entirely history,” Dimitri concludes. “It’s a mixture of both, and the weight of its completion will be distributed across multiple people.”

"That's comforting," Sylvain says, knocking another pawn off the chessboard. "Hey Felix, wanna—"

"Were you not even listening, the presentation stuff is at the end of the semester." Felix glares at the pieces still in play, brow furrowed as he considers his moves. "Ask me again in a few months when we actually have to worry about this stuff for marks."

"I think it sounds like a rather interesting project to work on," Mercedes says, reaching for her sewing shears. "I've always wanted to look into the Valla Cycle in more detail myself, but the School of Sorcery didn't have many books on the matter, to be honest. It's a good thing the Garreg Mach library has such an extensive archive."

She snips the thread quickly and flattens out the piece she's been working on. "Only one more colour," she says. The embroidered _Blue Lions_ in stunning royal blue was Annette's idea, Dimitri recalls. Mercedes was all too happy to do the bulk of the embroidering. 

"I think I'd want to study the triangle attack," Ingrid says. "It's possibly one of the strongest formations a team of pegasus knights can take on, and it's deadly nearly every time. It's been in the textbooks since antiquity. I want to know what makes it so universally known."

"I remember reading about it some time ago," Dimitri offers, not remembering if _some time ago_ was last Tuesday or last year. "There was a very famous trio of Archanean sisters, all pegasus knights, who were said to be masters of the triangle attack."

Beside him, Dedue shuffles uncomfortably in his seat. “The Jugdral Saga is almost entirely lost to time,” he says quietly. “Will Professor Eisner allow us to choose anything about the ancient Jugdrali culture even with little to work off?”

“I’m sure the monastery’s archives have much to offer on the Jugdral Saga,” Dimitri assures him. “And if all else fails, there were some excellent texts available in the royal libraries in Fhirdiad that I can have brought here.”

Over on the table, staring at Mercedes’s embroidery intensely, Ashe suddenly brightens up. “Wait a second, that means I could do a school assignment… on _Loog and the Maiden of the Wind.”_ He turns to Dimitri with eyes wide open. “You did say we were allowed to work with people outside of our own houses on this, right?”

“Ooh, does Ashe already have someone in mind?”

“It’s not like that, Sylvain!” Ashe cries defiantly, though the tips of his ears flush a little red. “I meant to say that I could work with Ignatz, since he’s also a big fan of _Loog and the Maiden of the Wind._ He’s really good with anatomy, too, so it would be easier to analyze the artwork and the movement in the images.”

“That’s really interesting to think about,” Mercedes says. “Annie told me about Ignatz’s art a while ago.”

Annette nods furiously. “I went to visit Lysithea in her room, and she brought me to the Golden Deer common room, and Claude was stacking books on Lorenz while he was asleep, and Ignatz was sketching them!” For her part, she only turns a little red. “Then I tried, and the whole stack fell over… And then Lysithea grabbed me and ran and we ended up playing cards with Petra and Caspar for the rest of the afternoon.”

“I wish I could say we don’t have the same kind of shenanigans here,” Dimitri sighs, and here Dedue gives him a longsuffering look, “but the number of… incidents we’ve had is starting to build up.” He makes a pointed glare at Mercedes, who smiles angelically, and Sylvain, who looks away like he’s somehow innocent.

“Oh, your highness,” Ashe says brightly, “do you have anything in mind for the presentation?”

Dimitri thinks for a second. “I’m open to anything, really,” he says. “Although I would like to study something from more ancient times, or mythological. I presume I will be consulting Professor Eisner again when the time comes.”

Truth be told, he feels like he’ll be visiting Professor Eisner’s office hours a lot more often than anticipated. Despite his first few interactions with the new combat professor being awkward as all hell, he can’t deny that she’s incredibly talented and incredibly wise. He’s never had any instructor like her, and from the few lectures he’s attended so far, he’s willing to jump to conclusions and say that he’s looking forward to the rest.

At the same time, though, he knows it’ll be an uphill battle. There’s a lot of marks going into this course, and while he has the blessed advantage of royal heritage and upbringing, being a prince will do him no good if he can’t perform in class. Professor Eisner might not be that much older than him, but her stoic silence says just as much as her haunted stare: she has been on the job for long enough to see the consequences of war.

He’s got to prove himself worthy of his crown and his title, and boy does he have a long, _long_ list of people to prove it to.

* * *

“Good news, everyone,” Claude says, pushing into the common room, “Lorenz and Lysithea each owe me five gold.”

Hilda looks up skeptically from where she’s filing her nails over an open textbook. “You mean to tell me that you actually memorized the entire syllabus that Professor Eisner went on and on about the other day?”

Claude dimples. “Nope,” he says, and Lorenz sighs in relief. “It was three certification exams instead of two. Sorry, lads, bet’s been lost, I’m buying ice cream the next time we head into town over the weekend.”

Lysithea drops her quill and crosses her arms. “I expect you to make good on that promise.”

“Oh, I fully intend to, my friend!” Claude slides into the seat between Lysithea and Raphael with a cocky grin.”Unless you’ve got other arrangements for the weekend…?”

"I don't owe you that information!"

"What Lysithea means," Leonie drawls, "is that she's arranged to head to town with Annette and Mercedes this weekend, and she intends to leech ice cream out of you before she does."

"Ouch," Claude says, pressing a hand dramatically to his chest, "I feel _used."_

"You promised!"

Hilda puts her nail file down. "You brought this upon yourself," she says, pointing at Claude with one slim finger. "Ice cream will be paid to you in due time."

"I cannot believe I was brought as low as to place _bets,"_ Lorenz mutters. "It does not feel like a victory."

"Just enjoy the ice cream," Claude tells him. "We can go to the shop in town and you guys can order so you can make sure I don't spike it."

Leonie raises an eyebrow. "Implying you were going to spike it to begin with?"

"Absolutely not, I don't know what you're talking about."

The common room settles down after that. Lysithea calls it a night, though Claude suspects that she's going to be reading in her room for at least another hour. The kettle over the fire boils, and Lorenz quietly gets up to put on a communal pot of tea. Raphael gets through a rough patch of their new assignment with a bit of help from Marianne. Ignatz finishes annotating his notes for the day and pulls out his sketchbook. 

It's always quiet in the evening with the Golden Deer, and Claude likes it like this. While it doesn't always apply to everyone, he's glad that it's a quiet learning environment. He's heard stories about students sneaking out at night to go drinking in the village and partying in the common room after midnight, but it's yet to happen with his house. He wonders sometimes if that's because his peers respect him or fear him. 

He doesn't miss the way Marianne shrinks when he grins at her with all his teeth, or how some of the younger ones whisper when he and Hilda pass by in the hallways. There's a long list of rumours about him floating across the school, but it's nothing he's not already used to, and it's nothing he can't handle. Besides, wasn't there that massive list of rumours about Professor Eisner, each more ridiculous than the last? 

Claude smiles to himself as he thinks of the professor. She's easily an enigma—impossible to read, impossible to sway. He tried rather unsuccessfully to convince her that he was once a student of the lance; she ended up citing not only his form but his atrocious grip as reasons against it. She knows way more than she lets on, and in the political chessboard, that makes her a valuable ally. 

Oh, sure, Edelgard trusts Professor Eisner almost as much as she trusts Hubert, and Dimitri is smitten by her sensibility and guidance, but they'll just fight for her attention until one of them yields. Claude thinks he'll lay low for a bit, and then make better friends with her first before offering his nation to her. He has no qualms that she will reject his first offer, and perhaps more afterwards.

All he knows is that introducing her to the Officers Academy has kickstarted the three-way chess war between the three nations, and his only chance at success is to have her on his side.

Marianne stacks her books and lights her candle in the communal one. "Good night," she whispers, and leaves as the chorus of _good night_ comes echoing back. Leonie calls it a night soon after that, patting Hilda on the shoulder fondly as she leaves, and then Raphael is shaking Ignatz's arm to wake him up, because the last time Ignatz fell asleep in the common room he woke up too sore to go to class. Slowly it's just Claude and Hilda and Lorenz left, each sprawled out in their own chair waiting for the night to pass.

The clock chimes a lonely ten o’clock. Hilda yawns. “Any plans for the weekend, you two?”

“After I acquire my well-earned ice cream, I think I will spend much time in the library,” Lorenz says. “It would not do well for a magic user to have a weak grip of magic absorption theory.”

“Says the one who can spin a lance overhand,” Hilda mutters, before brightening up. “I’m going to be doing some shopping with Leonie and Ingrid, the sweet angels, they _need_ to be introduced to the vast world of well-made hair pieces. How about you, Claude?”

He cocks a brow. “That is for me to know, and for both of you to wonder about.”

“You’ll just spend your weekend sleeping in again, won’t you.”

“Lorenz! The _audacity!”_ This gets him an eyeroll, but it’s worth the drama. “I’ll head into town with you guys to get you the ice cream, but after that, I’m heading back. I want to talk to Professor Eisner a bit if I get the chance to.”

“Ooh, chatting up the Professor? Could it be?” Hilda’s in his face in an instant, always down for gossip. He’s long learned to not try to stop her. “Has our little Claude finally discovered _love?”_

“I’m not little, and I’m not discovering love,” Claude says dryly. “I just wanted to ask about her experiences with flying, and if I need supervision to borrow a wyvern from the school and go for a fly.”

“Knowing you, she’ll regret saying anything,” Lorenz mutters, and smirks when Claude concedes to his point with begrudging silence.

* * *

It’s nearly eleven when the door finally opens, and Byleth looks up from her book to see her father drop his bag at his feet. “You didn’t have to stay up, kid,” he says, exhaustion seeping beyond the warmth in his voice. “You been doing okay?”

She nods, and closes her book. It’s been four days since he left on this mission run, and even with the correspondence she got two days ago, she won’t deny that it’s been tense. Bandits are starting to emerge all over the continent, and she’s got some ideas as to who’s been giving them orders.

But she can’t voice those concerns to her father; he’s stressed out enough about the Knights and Rhea and the mess that is Fódlan, and she doesn’t want to add more to his plate. Instead, she offers a plate: a cold serving of vegetable pasta salad, saved from the evening rush of students, with two slices of garlic bread and a few slices of pheasant. The dining hall closed a few hours ago, so she’s been keeping it under a large bowl she pilfered from the kitchens and praying the mosquitoes don’t get to it.

“You really didn’t have to,” Jeralt says, but he sits down and eats nonetheless. His scarred hands are freezing cold when Byleth brushes past, and she runs over to the kettle to pour him some hot water. “Thanks, kid.”

He ruffles her hair, and even though it’s been decades since she considered herself a child, she takes it gracefully, because it’s one of the few things that still reminds her of her father, time after time.

The night gets a little less cold now that he’s back. He tells her about his mission, and it’s weird having it told to her since for once she’s not there with him. His tone is always so stern, but bits of his team seep through without meaning to, like Alois’s jokes and the sniper’s clumsiness and all the increasingly ridiculous ways the bandits tried to plead for mercy.

“And how about you?” he finally asks, scraping the last of the berry sauce off his plate. “How’re your brats doing?”

Byleth pauses. “I taught magic absorption theory today,” she says. “Some of the students aren’t very keen of it.”

“Magic absorption theory, eh? You can’t crunch numbers, but magic comes easily.” His smile grows only a little bitter. “Can’t do it myself. You probably got it from your mother.”

He doesn’t expand, and she doesn’t press. She knows there will come a day when he can entrust that part of his history to her.

And as far as she can figure, that’s okay. He has his secrets, and she has hers. They can set aside their careers as the most feared mercenaries in Fódlan to become holy knights and combat professors. Byleth doesn’t like teaching, and her father doesn’t like being so close to Rhea, but she prefers this to fighting a war that wasn’t hers to begin with, and he prefers this to losing her like he lost her mother.

Life goes on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think the most important thing to address here is the cats. i know these aren't the cats depicted in-game (and also i have never had a pet cat in my life) but the strays are based off the three most important cats in my life! the bombay with the white diamond on its chest is based off Sophie, my neighbours' cat who likes to mush her face into my arm whenever she sees me. the seal-point siamese is based off Monkey, my godparents' cat who is old and cranky and hates pinball machines, and the tabby ragdoll is based off Bobo, who is my godparents' other cat who is a fluffy little bitch and i love him so much.  
> actually i think my personal lack of cats has really been contributing to my desire to give Byleth cats  
> also the presentation part of the curriculum is where the majority of the "loose ties to other FE games" comes in! i think it'll be fun to analyze some of the battle things in other FE games, as well as just the storyline for some of them. also i'm a lore goblin and this was absolutely inevitable


	4. shopping therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you give a professor a paycheck and a free weekend, maybe she'll use it to do productive things.

Weekends have always been disappointing to Byleth.

The mercenary lifestyle doesn’t honour the idea of a weekend, unlike most occupations; arbitrary compartmentalizations of time are meaningless when there are heads to be cut off. Being a house professor wasn’t kind to her schedule either—she was effectively cooped in the monastery grounds over the weekends, unable to do much aside from making calculus lesson plans or training with the other professors.

But that’s all in the past! She’s free to do whatever she damn pleases with her weekends, since calculus isn’t dragging her down! She has her first paycheck, and even though it’s not quite as tidy a sum as the house professor paycheck it’s still a tidy sum! She can browse products in a time of peace, as opposed to a time of war! She can check out the shops in town, and see what her students like to do in their spare time, and enjoy life a little!

She hasn't the foggiest idea of how to get there.

Over the cumulative four lives she’s led, Byleth has spent time in Remire Village perhaps ten, fifteen times, and every single time was the result of some other errand: passing through on her way to a mission, dragged out of the monastery on Hilda’s wyvern, dropped off by Ingrid on pegasus. Not once has she actually had to navigate the woods to Remire herself, and now that going is a regular option, she’s gotta find her way somehow.

Armed with the spending money she's allotted herself from her paycheck, Byleth wanders the halls of Garreg Mach Monastery early on a Saturday morning like the ashen ghost that she is. Not many students are milling about at this hour; most should still be asleep, and the few that aren't have probably deigned to spend their precious morning having breakfast. She only encounters one student on the way to the staff room, a boy she recognizes as being in her 3:30 class. 

The only ones in the staff room at this hour are Seteth and Flayn, sorting out the papers to be marked and certifications to be handed out. "Good morning, Professor Eisner!" Flayn says cheerfully, waving with a stack of papers in hand. "Care for some morning marking?"

"We're not marking these," Seteth amends with a frown, "and neither is Professor Eisner. For the most part, these will be returned to their respective house professors for marking and distribution. Goddess knows _some_ professors are less responsible than others." He turns to Byleth, looking a little cross. "What can we do for you?"

"I want to visit the town." She pauses, unsure of what else she can say without getting scrutinized by Seteth. "I was wondering how to get there."

Surprisingly, he drops the stern look. "Oh, you can go with Flayn, then. She knows the way." And then, more quietly: “At least _someone_ will accompany her.”

"I've been wanting to take a trip into town for a while now," Flayn says excitedly. "I'm starting to run out of fish bait. Oh, you will shop for fish bait with me, won’t you, Professor Eisner?"

And so the procession begins: Byleth, cloak thrown hastily over her shoulders, led by one very excitable Flayn. The monastery grows smaller and smaller in the distance, and Byleth can feel the regret in her ankles. "How much further is the town?"

"We gotta cross the forest," Flayn tells her. "At least, that's the normal way, anyhow. Sometimes if you're lucky you can catch one of the pegasus riders as they're heading out and hitch a ride to town with them. I was going to ask some of the upper year students to take me before you came, to be honest." She dimples. "But! It is good to be out in nature and enjoying the breeze."

When she snips over a tree trunk, the tips of her pointed ears poke through her hair. Byleth deliberately looks the other way.

"Do you have anything you're looking for in particular, Professor?"

"Um," Byleth says intelligently. "Soap."

"Oh! There's this lovely soap shop in town," Flayn chatters. "The shopkeeper is really pretty, too! And there's a coffeeshop right next door that sells really good ice cream, and a seamstress just a few doors down. I think you're going to quite like the town, Professor."

"I look forward to it."

* * *

The bell on the door rings, and Nibbs instantly tears her attention away from her crochet to the new customer. "Welcome to Ibbott Wares!" she tells the young woman walking in, who looks a whole lot like the mercenary girl who swung around these parts last month. "What can I do ya for?"

 _You sound like Anna,_ she chides herself, _get a hold of yourself._

The customer doesn't seem to mind the excessive enthusiasm, though. "I'm looking for… a lavender oatmeal soap," she says quietly.

Nibbs beams. "Well, you're absolutely in the right place!" she says, ushering the customer in. "I just cut up a batch of lavender oatmeal this morning! Fifty gold a bar, miss, and if you buy three it's one-twenty-five."

Truth be told, she isn’t expecting the customer to immediately nod and agree to the deal. Usually it takes a lot more convincing, which she is all too willing to do. Instead, the customer just reaches for her bag and starts to pull out coins. “Thank you,” Nibbs manages, flustered over the handful of coins being dropped into her hands, “I’ll get you a bag for your soap.”

As she rifles through the cabinet for an adequately sized paper bag, the scabbard swinging at the customer’s side catches her eye. “Oh,” she says, “so you _are_ the dashing mercenary who was around here last month! Fancy meeting you again, miss, um…”

“Byleth.”

“Miss Byleth!” She hands over the bag of soap with a grin. “I’m Michaela Ibbott, but most folks just call me Nibbs.”

Byleth doesn’t smile, but then again, she hasn’t shown any emotion since she walked in. It’s a stark difference from Nibbs herself, who gesticulates wildly and can tell a story with her eyebrows alone. “An interesting nickname.”

“It’s certainly not much,” Nibbs laughs. “A humble nickname for a humble shopkeeper.”

“Your wares are of a very high quality, though.” Byleth turns over one of the soaps on the table, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. “I can see that you have a lot of pride in your business.”

“Ah, it runs in the family. Quality soap is what we make best, so that’s what we’ve gotta do.” She leans over, beckoning Byleth forward with a conspiratorial grin. “To be honest, I’ve outcompeted the local trader Anna for soap. Her stuff never caught on around these parts, and now, she’s been buying my soap off me to go sell in other parts of Fódlan.” She’s been really excited about that for a while now; even though she’s awful at out-haggling Anna, it’s still amazing to think that people so far away could be using her wares.

“I can see why,” Byleth remarks, setting down the soap. “I can’t offer much, but I can certainly help you obtain the patronage of the student body of the Officers Academy.”

Nibbs stares at her. “Goddess above, you’re a student at the Officers Academy?”

“Professor,” Byleth says, as if this is any less daunting. In retrospect, it makes more sense, given how she isn’t clad in the standard uniform of brown and gold. “I’m a new hire.”

“Why, that means—” Nibbs has to take a moment to laugh here. “Oh my goodness, I’ve been speaking to a professor at the Officers Academy this whole time! Wow, this world really is small, isn’t it?”

“It sure is.” The blankness of Byleth’s stare seems to have been replaced by mild amusement. Nibbs can only imagine what she must look like, flabbergasted as she is.

“So that must mean you live up in Garreg Mach as well.”

“Yes. Do you know anyone from the monastery or the academy?”

And even though it’s a normal question, something anyone would ask offhand, Nibbs has to hide a wince behind her smile. “Mmm, I have an old friend who works up at the monastery,” she says, leaning on the counter and tapping her fingers rhythmically across her face. “It’s been a while, though.”

“Aye,” Byleth murmurs. “Don’t let that friend go. It’s hard to forge a friendship again once it’s been lost to time.”

It’s pleasant to speak to Byleth, strange as she may be. She expresses a desire to take better care of her hair, and Nibbs is all too happy to direct her to the olive hair balm. They converse about every which thing, from tea to politics to work, and it’s really funny how easily Nibbs gets attached to this girl who is a world away from her.

“Any siblings?” she asks, wrapping the little tin of hair balm in brown paper to prevent it from getting scraped. “I’ve got a younger sister myself—Elysande, the sweet thing, she’ll be turning seventeen in the Red Wolf Moon.”

“I’m an only child.” Byleth accepts the product with both hands, and tucks it into her pack with her three bars of soap. “Mercenary companies don’t usually bring small children with them. I was an exception because my father was the captain.”

“My, you really do come from an accomplished family, don’t you!”

“I try not to outshine my father.”

“Aw, but I’m sure it’ll happen in due time.” A little boldly, she reaches forward and pats Byleth’s shoulder. “Imagine being an instructor at the Officers Academy! I can’t fathom how many students you’ve touched with your tutelage.”

“Thank you, Nibbs, but I really am not all as talented as you insist,” Byleth says. She blinks owlishly at the clock on the wall. “Pardon, does that say ten o’clock?”

Nibbs turns to read the time. “That’s eleven, dearest!”

“Oh.” Byleth just dusts herself off, seemingly unflustered save for the red in the tips of her ears. “I must take my leave now. It was pleasant to speak to you.”

“And you as well! Take care!”

The bell jangles as Byleth slips out in a flash of black and blue, and Nibbs finds herself returning to her seat behind the counter, crochet in hand, and returning to a place in her thoughts she didn’t think she’d find again. What if… no. A young and upcoming professor wouldn’t notice a village boy doing unskilled work at the monastery.

The soap business is slow: her regulars don’t return for weeks, even months at times. Nibbs sighs and resigns herself to another lonely day of sparse sales and quiet crochet.

She misses conversation with Byleth already.

* * *

“The general imports store is here,” Mercedes says, pushing the door open. “Of course, the imports are seasonal, but the things you find here are simply—”

“Mercedes?”

She looks into the shop and is surprised to find a few faces she recognizes. “Why, your highness!” she says, as Prince Dimitri approaches holding a jug of Macedonian vinegar, flanked by Felix and Sylvain on either side. “And Felix and Sylvain! It’s good to see all of you here.”

Behind her, Annette sneezes, and Mercedes suddenly remembers the group she’s been taking around town. She steps aside and counts: one for Annette, two for Lysithea, three for Petra. It is thus that a few happy greetings are exchanged, with Sylvain sketching much too low of a bow to Petra (“hey it’s for a _princess”)_ and getting promptly smacked over the head by Felix for it. The shopkeeper seems amused at the miniature reunion occurring at the door of his shop.

“What are you looking for?” Dimitri asks, falling in step beside Mercedes. “Or are you just browsing for now?”

“Oh, I never know what I’m looking for among the imports, your highness,” Mercedes laughs. “It’s always a question of whether or not I can hold myself back from dropping a little spending money on, say, treats?”

“You can indulge in yourself once a while, Mercedes,” Dimitri tells her. “You lift us up, but it is important to let yourself rest.”

The store has a pretty wide variety of imports today, which is good, because it means spring is coming and life is returning to the lands outside of Fódlan. Mercedes picks out a silk embroidery thread in vibrant royal blue as the final colour for her embroidered piece, and allows herself to indulge in buying a small pattern manual for various garments. It’s written entirely in the language of Archanea, of which she understands none, but it’ll be good practice for that translation spell she learned back at the School of Sorcery.

Prince Dimitri and Felix and Sylvain take their leave with their purchases soon after that, and Mercedes arranges to meet with them to go over the nuances of magic absorption theory after she returns to the monastery. Petra comes running up with a beautiful silk brocade in shimmering iridescent green and purple, and although it’s hard for her to get her message across, Mercedes promises to help her make a capelet in the Faerghus fashion with it.

It’s about then that the door creaks open again, and Mercedes turns, eager to greet another of her classmates, and is surprised to find Professor Eisner walking in. “Professor!” she gasps, shock slowly being replaced with a delighted smile. “It’s nice to see you out here in the town.”

“I’m glad to see you too, Mercedes,” Professor Eisner says. “Are you doing a bit of shopping?”

“Yes, I’m picking up some things for my embroidery, and I’m taking Annie, Lysithea and Petra around to see the shops.”

Annette comes running with the other girls in tow, all three practically leaping across the floor. “Professor Eisner! Are you out shopping as well?” she asks, still clutching her purchase of a bag of imported berries to her chest. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

Professor Eisner blinks. “Candy,” she says. Lysithea’s eyes light up. “I like a type of Zofian candy. I was wondering if I could find it here.”

“Is it the Novis Taffy you’re looking for, Miz?” the shopkeep calls from the counter, amusement in his tone. “Or perhaps the Fizzies are the ones you want?”

“It’s the Novis Taffy,” Professor Eisner says, “but I’ll take some of the fizzy chocolates too.”

And as she proceeds to drop what must be two hundred gold on imported candy, Mercedes is reminded once again of just how young this professor is. Rumours flocking across the Academy put her age at anywhere between nineteen and twenty-one, which means that Professor Eisner is almost certainly younger than Mercedes herself. It feels odd, considering how terrifyingly competent she is at her job. Not for the first time, Mercedes feels a little out of place as the oldest student at the Academy.

But she can’t bring herself to dislike Professor Eisner in any way. She’s such a sweetheart behind the indestructible blank shell, supportive and kind. Her hard demeanour and her rigorous training as a combat teacher is offset by the girl behind the mask, a girl who is apparently willing and able to spend a ridiculous amount of money on Zofian candy. The enigma is laid out before her; Mercedes thinks she’ll want to crack the code and befriend the girl underneath.

“I’ve never had those kinds of candies before,” Lysithea comments wistfully as the shopkeeper bags up Professor Eisner’s candy and hands them to her. “Are they any good?”

“Have one,” Professor Eisner says without hesitation, holding the bag to her. “All of you. I keep the candy in my room for office hours. You can walk into my room, take a candy and leave, as far as I’m concerned.”

She offers the bag to Mercedes, who smiles and takes one gratefully. It’s a coral-pink taffy, wrapped in waxy paper and affixed with a daub of wax for a seal. Tiny words in the Valentian language are pressed into the paper, repeating in a crisp and clean print.

In the end, she ends up only taking a tiny nibble and wrapping it up and sticking the rest in her pocket. The taffy is strawberry-flavoured, saccharine and stretchy all at once. A little guiltily, she wonders if it’s rude to do so, but Professor Eisner is already talking to the younger girls again, recommending shops to them. “I purchased a number of bars of soap as well as some hair balm from Ibbott Wares. They make my favourite lavender oatmeal soap there.”

“We gotta check that out, then,” Annette says brightly. “It’s gotta be good if Professor Eisner calls it her favourite!”

Petra grasps at the end of her ponytail, running her fingers between the braids and the waterfall of maroon. “I am wanting to try this hair balm,” she says. “The change in precipitation has been having effects on the condition of my hair.”

“Mine is just very dry all the time, which is why I need the balm,” Professor Eisner says. “Well, it was very nice to speak to you all. I have a few more shops to visit before the end of the day, so I’ll be heading out now.”

“Thank you for the candy, Professor!” They wave their goodbyes at the door, and then the bell jingles and she’s gone just as quickly as she came, slipping out with her purchases dangling behind her.

As soon as she’s gone, Lysithea turns to the shopkeep with wild eyes. “That Zofian candy,” she says, “I’m gonna need your entire stock of it.”

Mercedes just laughs.

* * *

The florist is conversing with a student when Flayn comes into the shop, and even if she didn’t know him by face she’d recognize Dedue by height anyday. She’s almost hesitant to enter, to intrude on their conversation, but then the florist catches sight of her and beams. “Flayn, sweet angel, come on in!”

Dedue doesn’t display emotion a whole lot, but he offers her a kindly smile as she joins them at the table covered in succulents. “Are you interested in gardening, Miss Flayn?”

“Oh no, I’m _awful_ at gardening, but I love looking at the flowers!” she tells him excitedly. “There’s so much colour to look at, it’s just delightful!”

“Flayn comes here to chat sometimes over the warmer months,” the florist explains to Dedue. “We’ve established that most plants won’t survive for long in her hands, but it’s still nice to have someone so enthusiastic about flowers to come in and chat. You, on the other hand, my friend, you’re pretty good with plants?”

“That is correct. I’ve been keeping the greenhouse in the monastery,” Dedue confirms. “Aside from the plants grown from food, I’ve been experimenting with cross-pollinating some of the flowers.” He turns to Flayn. “There should be a colourful garden in there this year, if you should like to visit.”

“Oh, I would absolutely love to!”

It’s about then that the door creaks open, and the florist’s canary chirps as Professor Eisner enters the shop, studying the plants hanging from the ceiling and the bottles that line the walls. “Hello,” she says politely. Quietly. “Do you have plants that are non-toxic for cats?”

The florist does, in fact, have plants that are non-toxic for cats. Dedue informs Flayn seriously that all the toxic plants are tucked away in the greenhouse, which has many measures in place to prevent the monastery’s strays from getting in. They watch in amused silence as Professor Eisner picks up a potted Dagdan orchid and starts to converse with the florist about discolouration and its connection to magic-based fertilizer.

“She seems to be very engaged with the garden,” Flayn whispers as Professor Eisner browses through the succulents. “Maybe you can talk to her about gardening, too!”

Dedue seems a little squeamish at the sheer thought. “Do mercenaries have time to do gardening?”

Professor Eisner turns, and for what must be the first time visibly startles as she sees Flayn standing with Dedue. “Miss Flayn, Mr. Molinaro,” she says, cradling the succulent close to her chest, “I apologize. I did not notice you there.”

“That’s okay, Professor!” Flayn beams at her. “Did you get the soap you wanted?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Professor looks down into her bag, which has since been topped with what seems to be a bag of candy. “Miss Ibbott was very kind, and I made my purchases quickly.” She turns to the florist. “Speaking of which, I’d like to purchase this succulent, if you don’t mind.”

As she moves to pay for her plant, Flayn turns her attention to Dedue and the rack of seed packets he’s looking through. Each row of packets is folded neatly out of paper and labelled with a steady, sloping hand. _Morning Astra. Digitalis. Baby’s breath. Saint Seiros’s cradle. Snapdragons._

“The name _snapdragon_ sounds fierce,” Flayn comments. “Do they look like dragons?”

“If you squeeze the flower, yes, it looks like the jaw of a dragon.” Dedue pinches his fingers in demonstration. “They come in many colours, though, some of which I fear may not be so draconic in nature. The ones I have tended to in the past are mostly pink and white.”

Flayn thinks about dragons. Yes, it’s been a long time since any have walked Fódlan’s bloodstained earth, but a girl can dream, right? To fly among the true draconid, to sprout wings and soar away into the dawn—

It seems all too far away.

But the monastery has never been large enough to spread her wings. She’s a healer, a lover of all things that grow, and she’ll have to put away those dreams of flying if she is to stay a healer. Seteth says there’s war on the horizon, that she needs to be safe and stay out of harm’s way. That’s fine. She’ll do it for him, for their family, for the friends that she’s made.

She’s a healer, not a dragon. Demure little girls with big dreams shouldn’t have to take on iron scales and diamond teeth and ride the wind into battle. Sweet, angelic healers don’t fight on the front lines.

“Maybe,” she murmurs, “maybe we can breed the snapdragons to breathe fire. That’ll make them more draconic.”

It’s the first time she’s heard Dedue laugh, and as she joins him, she finds that maybe the dragons can wait, after all.

* * *

The amount of medicine that Professor Eisner is purchasing worries Hubert greatly.

While the Officers Academy does have an apothecary on site, as well as classrooms entirely dedicated to the medicinal art of brewery, both are mostly run by Professor Casagranda, who is (quite unfortunately) grossly incompetent at her job. She gets by fine teaching anything that can be read off a sheet of paper, and she’s quite decent with literature analysis, but brewing medicine? Half of it ferments, and she drinks it anyways because “what’s the point in wasting it”.

But still. An order for three gallons of vulnerary potion is a little ridiculous. The worst injuries that have happened in the combat course thus far have been minor—a twisted ankle, a scrape or a cut, bruises like blossoms across their limbs—but nothing that can’t be solved with a touch of white magic. The healers in their year have been getting plenty of practice in lately, and Hubert’s willing to say they’re excelling at their art.

So just what is Professor Eisner planning that requires _three gallons_ of vulnerary potion? There’s got to be some sort of large school event happening, something that the student body should be very, _very_ scared about. That woman may have brought a wave of change with her, but if Hubert’s being honest with himself, not all of it is so easily palatable.

Of course, he can’t exactly say that to her as he stands waiting in the corner of the apothecary shop for Lady Edelgard to finish making her purchases. Aside from the alarming amount of vulnerary potion, Professor Eisner buys a little handful of yggdrasil leaves—mild analgesics—and topical cream for treating wounds both physical and magical. While it wouldn’t be a strange purchase for a mercenary, she’s not exactly a mercenary anymore.

She’s preparing for something.

Lady Edelgard, on the other hand, purchases only the things she always does from the apothecary: a blend of herbs for menstrual health, of wild fennel and rosehip and rue, and the dried leaves of the Noa fruit. The former is a common purchase among women; the latter can be passed off as a health supplement, as opposed to its true purpose as a crest suppressant. A quiet herbal infusion easily slipped into a cup of tea, easily missed as Lady Edelgard takes her bergamot in the afternoons.

“The leaves of the Noa fruit make for good tea, Professor,” Lady Edelgard is saying as the apothecary bags up her purchases. “While not as sweet as the fruit, it still produces a sweet fragrance.”

Professor Eisner frowns. “I thought the leaves had a mild toxin to them.”

“That is… not entire incorrect. There are natural toxins in the leaves, but none strong enough to harm or kill. A cup or two of tea daily can actually boost the immune system.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” The professor turns to Hubert, who straightens his posture from his place by the door. “And anything for you, Mr. von Vestra?”

“I have made the majority of my purchases for the day already, Professor Eisner,” he says curtly. “Thank you for your concern.”

And while Professor Eisner doesn’t smile, she seems vaguely amused by something he’s said. “Alright, then, I’ll leave you two to your shopping.” To the shopkeep: “I’ll pick up the order on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth.”

“Thank you for your patronage, ma’am.”

There has to be something happening the thirtieth, then. Hubert wonders if he’ll remember it for the way back to the monastery. He probably won’t, so even as he greets Professor Eisner on her way out he’s moving towards Lady Edelgard. “I beg your pardon, Lady Edelgard, but is there something occurring on the thirtieth that requires _three gallons_ of vulnerary potion?”

“I do believe it has something to do with the end-of-month mission.” Lady Edelgard frowns. “But that cannot require so much, can it? The traditional mission of the first month is the mock battle of the three houses… Why would that require so much healing?”

“Unless Professor Eisner plans to change the battle entirely. We can raise concern with the faculty if her plans are ridiculous.”

“That will not be needed, thank you, Hubert.” Lady Edelgard purses her lips, still deep in thought. “I believe it will be more difficult than past years, and more challenging intellectually. Dorothea says that Professor Eisner is a very skillful tactician. It is very likely that the mock battle will test our ability to _plan_ just as much as our abilities to fight.”

She turns to the shopkeep, who is now processing bills and rearranging the jars on the shelves. “Pardon, but… how much does three gallons of vulnerary potion cost?”

“Well, it comes usually in these bottles, these little ones, and those are a hundred gold each. You Academy folk should be more accustomed to the larger bottles, which are three hundred gold a pop.” The shopkeep brings the familiar corked flask onto the counter from below. “There’s about… hmm, I wouldn’t say four hundred, maybe three-fifty of those bottles in one of our big gallon jugs?” They laugh. “Oh, don’t worry about the bottles, you can order them in bulk from the School of Sorcery in Fhirdiad. They practice conjuration with those.” The _clink_ of their fingernail against the corked vulnerary flask nearly gives Hubert a heart attack. “It’s why each one of these is different.”

“Hubert,” Lady Edelgard says in a rather strained voice, “is this where the budget for this institution goes? To making sure we survive _mock_ battles in one piece?”

“Lady Edelgard, if I had any idea of what the budget of the Officers Academy were I would not be nearly as worried for the occupational security of our new professor.”

Behind the counter, the shopkeep adjusts their glasses and hides a knowing smile, and Hubert hates every minute of not knowing what on earth the new professor is planning.

* * *

The forge is not a friendly place.

Ignatz has several choice words for it: the gaping maw of a fire-breathing dragon, ready to seek and destroy at will. The carcass of some hell-beast alight in a maelstrom of flame. The ringing of catastrophic bells, iron upon iron, beating out his last breath. Smoke filling his lungs with the aftertaste of charcoal and blood.

A single warrior emerges from a fire-sea with sword in hand, apparently to barter with Ashe for prices because Ignatz has apparently let himself get dragged in here to watch his new friend haggle for a spearhead.

“Can you do four fifty?” Ashe says, eyes bright with forge fire and the glint of glowing iron. He’s positively on his toes now, leaning over the table where the smith’s wares are laid out. “I know it’s not much, but…”

“Look, kid, I get that you’re on a tight budget, but five hundred is as far as I can go,” the smith says, crossing her arms over her chest. Ignatz tries not to think about the fact that she can probably snap him in half with her bare fingers. “Don’t you Academy kids have your own armory up there?”

“Yeah, but everyone’s gotta share, and I want to keep something on me for when I visit home.” Ashe rifles around in his wallet again, eyes growing dewy and large as he looks up at the smith. “Four seventy-five?”

The smith sighs, and from the way Ashe seems to relax Ignatz knows his friend has won. “Fine. You better make good use of it, though, kid.”

She wraps up the spearhead in clean cotton canvas as Ashe lays out the gold on her table. Four hundred and seventy-five, haggled down but honest. “Lydia down the street can fit you with a sturdy shaft,” she says, “if she isn’t making roof shingles r’now. I’d check now and check back again later. Pleasure doing business with ya kids.”

“Thank you!”

The world seems to cool down in an eternity plus one second as they step out of the forge, with Ashe tenderly cradling his new spearhead. “Were the puppy eyes really necessary?” Ignatz asks, raising an eyebrow.

“It was _absolutely_ necessary,” Ashe replies soberly. “There are _many_ things I am willing to do to lower the price of a product, Ignatz.”

They’ve got one more place to go, and it’s important for them both: the fletcher’s shop. Ashe is looking for longer arrows, something that’ll fit his recurve, while Ignatz just wants a few sturdy arrows to test with the compound that Professor Eisner handed him two classes ago. Not many students at the Officers Academy are strictly archers, so the armory doesn’t carry the best arrows. A few of their peers are saying that a professor will come later in the year to teach them to make their own. Somehow, Ignatz is a little hesitant to believe it.

He confides this to Ashe, who is a lot more optimistic. That’s something Ignatz really admires about his new friend: Ashe is willing to make a lot of sacrifices, but they’re all made in good spirits. They spent hours on the range last weekend practicing their aim with Bernadetta and Petra until their fingers were red and the bruises on their arms were burning, and not once did Ashe complain, only laughed and kept going.

Ignatz is not nearly as confident in his ability to pick himself back up.

“Oh hey, look, it’s Professor Eisner.” Ashe stands on tiptoe to wave excitedly, and it only takes a moment more for Ignatz to zero in on where he’s spotted her in the crowd. “Professor! Good afternoon, Professor!”

When Professor Eisner joins them, it’s with several packages in her arms. “Good afternoon, Mr. Ubert, Mr. Victor. I hope you’ve had lunch.”

“We got sandwiches with Caspar and Linhardt and Dorothea,” Ignatz says. “Where are you headed to, Professor?”

She looks around. “For now, the fletcher’s,” she says. “Are you two headed there as well?”

“Yes, we are.”

This turns out to be a good thing: it’s the Professor’s first time in town, and she doesn’t know where the fletcher’s shop is. She’s proficient with a bow, as she’s demonstrated multiple times in class, but it’s clear that her weapon of choice is still the sword. Her intention is to browse arrowhead and fletching types.

“It’s for an upcoming combat exercise,” she says. “I recommend looking into some light armor, you two, as well as some defenses. Just in case.”

“In case of _what?”_

Professor Eisner remains silent. Ignatz is, frankly, a little scared.

It’s not just him, either. Professor Eisner is _nothing_ like the professors he was expecting when he enrolled in the Officers Academy. Professor von Hyrm, maybe—he’s stern and quiet and has a strict marking system which is easy to comprehend. Everything about Professor Eisner is enveloped in mystery, from her syllabus (what in the name of Lady Seiros is a _performance mark?)_ to her identity. There’s so many rumours floating around about her that Ignatz doesn’t know what to believe anymore.

Ashe seems to not give a single damn about this. He slips so easily into conversation with Professor Eisner, leaving Ignatz to fill in whenever needed. They almost skip right past the fletcher’s shop, stopped in their tracks only by a moment of entirely random recognition. Ignatz pushes open the door, and in they go.

The walls are lined with arrow samples, each just as slender and delicate as the last. In the hands of a capable archer, any of these can become a deadly dart. A few sample bows sit on the table—a recurve, a curling shortbow, a beautiful crossbow with bas-relief done in scrolls across the stock. The fletcher himself laughs as Ignatz and Ashe run to _ooh_ and _aah_ over the crossbow.

Professor Eisner, for her part, browses the arrows diligently, and then proceeds to converse with the fletcher about ordering arrows for the Academy. The prices here are decent, given the quality of the arrows. Ignatz picks out a dozen iron-tipped arrows and wraps them in cotton canvas, knowing fully well his arms will be sore by the time he can carry them back to his room.

Maybe, just _maybe,_ he regrets stuffing his bag with his sketchbook on his day off. He can’t put anything else in the bag. He hasn’t even drawn anything today.

That changes quickly, though, as he and Ashe and Professor Eisner sit on a large rock in the village looking over their purchases. “Be careful with the tip of that spear,” Professor Eisner warns, running a calloused finger over the flat of Ashe’s new spearhead while Ignatz sketches the town. Now that they’re in the sun, soaking up the afternoon, Ignatz can finally see the colours of the acid etching across its surface. “It’s sharp enough to poke through the fabric.”

“I will, Professor.” Ashe wraps the spear back up and sticks it in his backpack, tying the drawstrings neatly. “I can get it fitted with a shaft back at the Academy, right?”

“Perhaps if you convince Seteth to let you use the woodworking shop,” Professor Eisner says, before turning to Ignatz. “How are your arrows?”

Ignatz shows them to her. She looks over each appraisingly, nodding as she runs her fingers over the fletchings. “Fine products,” she says finally. “Did they cost a lot?”

“A fair bit,” Ignatz admits. “Nearly two hundred gold for the dozen.”

“They’re a good investment to make.” The arrows are returned to him; he wraps them up and puts them in his bag. “If you purchase a bunch of low-quality arrows, you’ll constantly be replacing them. A few good weapons will last you a long time.” She pushes aside her coat and pulls a short knife from the sheath on her belt. “I’ve had this knife since I was a girl. It still looks brand new.”

And indeed, the knife is sparkling steel, and Ignatz and Ashe lean over to admire it, but there’s something about the knife that seems to make Professor Eisner even more quiet than she already is. She barely talks about her life, or anything outside of class really. Now, she seems downright _haunted,_ like she’s coming to terms with something awful. Silently, she slides the knife back into its sheath, and the last flash of cornflower blue disappears under the swing of her coat.

“Quality over quantity,” she sums up, and they snap to attention. “Invest in a good weapon that will last you a lifetime.”

“That’s a good mindset to have, Professor,” Ashe says soberly. “I might want to look into getting a sturdier spear shaft, then.”

“I look forward to it.”

She leaves soon afterwards, and why wouldn’t she, with all her packages and purchases. Ignatz shades in a window in his sketchbook and holds the sketch up to the afternoon sun. The perspective is slightly off, but not immediately noticeable when he doesn’t compare it to the real town. “Looks good,” Ashe comments.

It does not, in fact, look good in Ignatz’s eyes—it’s just a sketch, after all—but he supposes that where they differ. “We should start heading back soon,” he says, flipping to a new page in his sketchbook and beginning to etch out the shape of a nearly tree. “It’s an hour’s walk back to the monastery.”

“We should,” Ashe agrees, even as he slides down to lean against the rock. “The sun’ll set soon.”

They don’t move.

* * *

It’s nearly six in the evening when Byleth finally says her goodbyes to Flayn at the monastery, and shuffles down the hallways to deposit her purchases in her own room.

She’s exhausted from a day of walking through town, and her wallet is a thin, measly pouch in her pocket, but she’s got the things she needs for the upcoming month. Of course, it was nice to see her students in town, around and about on their own shopping adventures.

The pang of guilt hits her once more as she thinks about her pitiful introductions. Time and time again, lifetime after lifetime, she still goes to the general imports shop for Zofian candy. The apothecary has never failed her medical needs. Nibbs is still one of her fondest friends outside of the monastery—perhaps the only one. The bars of soap in her bag weigh down heavier than the knife at her hip, or the head on her shoulders.

She passes through the mess hall on her way in, hoping to grab a bite to eat, and is greeted with giggles as Hilda, Leonie and Ingrid sit around a table listening to her father tell tales from his mercenary troupe. Ingrid has new ribbons woven through her hair and stars in her eyes; Byleth can tell her father is going to have a new fan by the end of the night. They don’t spot her as she grabs an apple, balances it on the edge of her purchases, and moves on.

Byleth lives a double life. She talks to Nibbs as though it’s her first time meeting the sweet soap vendor and not the fifth. Oh yes, she knows all about Nibbs even beyond the oversharing: she knows that Nibbs’s younger sister Elysande is off being a bard in faraway lands, and that Nibbs thinks herself too plain to be a performer. She hasn’t quite figured out who her friend at the monastery is yet. That’s okay. She’s willing to learn that in due time.

(Time, it seems, is the one thing she has the least of.)

It takes a bit of struggling to unlock her room, but the relief she feels when she dumps her belongings on her bed is worth it. One by one, she smooths out the packages, lays them out and looks at the prices. Five hundred for a decent iron sword was worth it; she was getting tired of the training swords at the academy. A few yards of black cotton, which she intends to make some flexible training pants with, cost her a hundred. All together, with the plants and the soap and the candy and her medicine, she’s exceeded her “spending money” by a considerable amount.

… Maybe she shouldn’t spend so long in town next time.

But now, as she lifts her new succulent plant out of her bag, she’s pretty satisfied with her purchases. She’ll transfer the little plant to the greenhouse when it gets cold indoors, but for now it’s safe to keep on her desk, securely on its little tray so that nothing can topple it over.

There’s a creak at the window, and she snaps to attention immediately. The sound of little claws batting at the glass is familiar, and as Byleth runs to open the window she’s greeted with three of her little friends. The bombay trills and presses its face lovingly into her palm as it climbs in, followed by the others.

“Are you here to watch me work?”

The reply is the ragdoll rolling over to expose its belly for rubs. She obliges. “Alright, then. I’ll do my lesson planning, and you three can watch.”

And so it is: Byleth’s looping, curling handwriting mixed in with tabby fur and torn little claw prints. A candle lit in the dark, the sound of chalk and steel on fabric. Quiet purrs as a not-so lonely girl stitches away her secrets into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good day friends! if you've seen me scream on twitter lately you'll know that i have not seen peace since the dlc dropped! i absolutely adore the Rat Pack and i have the perfect place to put them into my fic, but literally everything else we learned (sitri, ANSELMA?? MA'AM) has been setting my almonds on fire, so to speak. it's not even bad i just don't want to update my planning doc  
> in terms of this chapter, i just wanted to take a look at village life and explore some friendships between the students! i got a little carried away creating the shopkeepers, but they'll make reappearances here and there - particularly Nibbs! back when #fe3hOCparty was a thing i came up with her! she's not a student, but she'll definitely pop up again in the future. she's also admittedly a bit of a self-insert character - her crochet hobby is lifted directly from me, and her younger sister Elysande is actually my DnD character!  
> if anyone gets the Beckett reference or the LOTR reference feel free to yell at me lmao
> 
> * * *
> 
> and just as a small aside, thank you to everyone for 100 kudos! it really means the world to me <3


	5. don't watch paint that never dries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot to innovate on when you've lived through your own mistakes four lifetimes in a row.

Byleth likes not being at war.

The peace of the everyday is something she didn't realize she missed so dearly. Even though she still wakes up thinking that she needs to save Edelgard from drowning in a sea of fire and pinches herself when she thinks of Dimitri so frostbitten by the cold, life is decent in Garreg Mach for the most part. She's alive, her father's alive, and she's made one very, very important discovery:

Teaching is actually fun. 

Back when she taught as a house professor, incorporating math and chemistry into her syllabus made it just as hard for her as it was for her students. Now that she's just a combat professor, she's free to do whatever the hell she pleases, and frankly, she quite likes it. She can stand at the front of the class (or sit on a desk, should she so choose to) and rant for hours about the ramifications of eating too much cheese before a battle. 

And the best part? No one can stop her, because she's the only person in this institution who can go head-to-head with Catherine and Jeritza  _ at the same time _ and still come out swinging. No one can touch her with a five-foot pole, and she’s content with it.

Case in point: she’s teaching in the yard today. Her students are doing accuracy training. Normally this involves lectures about anatomy and lethality in the classroom, with a skeleton and occasionally a volunteer getting pinched to demonstrate. Of course, because this is Byleth teaching, it goes nothing even remotely like that.

She’s forgone the traditional round targets, instead deigning to dress a few practice dummies up in tattered armor and propping them up against sandbags. “It’s pointless to attack an unarmored practice dummy,” she explains to the dumbfounded students. “It doesn’t teach you anything if any shot kills. When you encounter actual soldiers on the battlefield, they won’t be sitting there in their pajamas.”

Not everyone is meant to fight at long range, though, so she has an alternate strategy for anyone who wields a melee weapon. A few of them watch in horror and dismay as Byleth hauls out a tub of paint and starts to slather their training weapons with it. “As always,” she prompts, not once looking up.

“Not a word of this to Seteth,” the class chimes, well used to her shenanigans by now.

It’s great to see everyone working with a weapon they’re familiar with now. Mercedes, who had so much trouble before with a sword, is now freely slinging spells beside Annette. Claude doesn’t even hesitate before loosing an arrow with such strength that it pierces through the leather armor on a training dummy. The kids with ranged weapons look so confident now, taking to the shooting range with newfound strength.

The students with melee weapons, on the other hand, are now starting to get stained in paint. It’s nothing bad, just bright green paint, but it has the wonderful advantage of taking  _ forever _ to dry, meaning they’ll have time to wash it off. There’s a splash of green across Edelgard’s cheek as she flits in and out of range of Raphael’s axe, and a long streak up Sylvain’s leg, but the more they spar, the more the smiles on their faces grow.

And if Byleth weren’t so scared for their future, she might smile too.

The eight-minute hourglass she borrowed from Manuela runs out, and gets back to her feet. “Hold fire,” she calls, and the archers and mages put down their weapons and run to pluck out their arrows and readjust their training dummies. “Two minute break, guys, good work. We’ll switch partners after this.”

A sigh of relief goes up from all around. “Professor, I genuinely hope this paint washes out easily,” Dimitri says, hair matted to his forehead with sweat. His hands are covered in paint, and Byleth honestly entertains the thought of his hair dyed green with paint. “Are you absolutely certain it won’t stain our clothes?”

“I am never certain of anything, Mr. Blaiddyd,” she replies sardonically. “I’ll end class a bit early so everyone can clean up.”

They return to practice soon after that. Byleth watches as Hilda and Caspar spar back and forth across the courtyard. Amidst the laughter they still manage to keep form, though Hilda’s definitely changing her grip to compensate for the paint. She keeps ducking away, cackling like an absolute witch, while Caspar taunts her and swings his axe closer. Felix vaults over a low sweep of Leonie’s lance and parries a blow, getting paint in his hair. Ferdinand rolls to avoid Dedue’s axe and gets to his feet in time to counter a swing spectacularly.

Overall, it’s greatly entertaining to watch. The spars continue, paint splatters, and the students who don’t use melee weapons thank their lucky stars that they chose this path in life. Mercedes looks absolutely  _ mortified _ every time a sparring pair approaches her.

There’s just one little problem.

Byleth winces as Edelgard launches herself into the air and Dimitri blocks her hit with both hands gripped firmly on his lance. Where the others are loosening up and getting familiar with each other and  _ having fun _ with the paint in the challenge, Edelgard and Dimitri are whaling on each other mercilessly. Both of them are practically  _ drenched _ in paint.

Perhaps it was a mistake to let them spar. Their blades clash once more, and Byleth is brutally reminded that they’re not exactly on speaking terms as it stands. The sound of Edelgard's axe carving out a crescent through the air or Dimitri jabbing forward with his lance makes Byleth sick to her stomach. It's just a spar for now. It won't be for much longer.

In every other timeline, they were a testament to her failure to stop the war.

But even then she can't deny the sheer talent they have. Edelgard is a whirlwind, a hurricane that never touches ground. Dimitri, on the other hand, is a monolith, unshakeable from his roots. Each blow they make is matched equally and for opposite reasons. They're beautiful to watch, and Byleth almost can't stop them from tearing each other to pieces. 

"Alright, let's roll it back in," she finally yells, even though there's still a minute left to the session. Better to stop them now than to explain the bodies to Seteth later. "Well done, everyone, I'm glad to see you all improving."

The class gathers around her, and she's pleased to see that they no longer automatically sort themselves by house. "Let's start with the range practice," she says, deliberately ignoring the groans from the students covered in paint. "What did you discover? Ms. von Martritz?"

"Unlike with target practice, we actually had to consider armor as a hindrance to our attacks."

"We also had to think of how on a real battlefield, we wouldn't be aiming at still units," Ignatz adds. "It became a lot more difficult to sneak in hits under the armor."

"I like both your points," Byleth says. "Movement and armor of enemies is very important to think about. If your enemy is faster than you, naturally your own accuracy is going to drop. There are very few situations where you can presumably guarantee a good, solid shot. Those of you with melee weapons, any insight?"

"Well, we all tend to have a lot of hits across our backs, limbs and legs," Ingrid says. "We should be considerate of those zones because we take so many hits."

"Yes and no. I definitely like your analysis, though." Byleth raises her own practice sword, looking around. "Ms. Pinelli, I'd like to do a demonstration."

Leonie beams at her. Out of her peers, she's one of the few who can genuinely keep up a spar with Byleth for longer than a few seconds—whether it’s out of age or experience, Byleth honestly doesn’t know. Regardless, they assume their fighting stances and begin to spar. Sword and lance clash again and again as they dance furiously across the courtyard, and it takes all Byleth has to not get splattered in green.

“That’s good.” The class erupts in applause as Leonie drops her stance, grinning beyond her gasps for air. “Thank you Ms. Pinelli, that was an excellent spar. Now, I want everyone to look at the hits on Ms. Pinelli.”

Leonie favours her right, so it’s no wonder she has a massive streak of green across the flat of her ribs on the left. Aside from that, there’s a fine collection of smaller splatters over her torso, shoulders and calves. “Given the current pattern of hits, you’d think that Ms. Pinelli should reinforce areas like her shoulders and legs, since she’s taken a lot of hits there,” Byleth says, “but there is a very simple reason why there are more important places to wear armor.”

She gestures at the streak of green across the back of Leonie’s head, and the massive splotch over her stomach, and the crescent over her heart. “If you get hit in the legs, so what? You retreat, get yourself treated for it. Maybe retire from the army. Go home to live in the suburbs with your wife and three dogs.” This gets some laughter from the class. “If you get a lance through the stomach, you’re not even making it back to that healer.”

_ (a glaive through her heart. an axe slicing neatly through his head. her own hands, her own sword, brought down to end them both.) _

“This is what we call survivorship bias,” she continues, swallowing the dread. “Those who survive are of course going to bear wounds, but we cannot forget the wounds that have killed. I want you to all think about that when you outfit yourself with armor. Look for your fatal weaknesses.  _ Prevent _ them.” She drops her sword aside. “Class is dismissed now. Clean yourselves up. Mages, get some food and water. I don’t want you bunch dropping unconscious in the middle of your other classes.”

As they scuttle out in clumps and droves, Byleth glares at the courtyard. It is, as expected, presently streaked in green paint. She’s going to have to figure out how to get that removed before Seteth finds out.

“Hey, Teach?”

She turns, and is presently greeted by a glob of paint to the face. “Sorry,” Claude cackles, “but I couldn’t resist.”

_ “CLAUDE VON RIEGAN—” _

He runs away laughing, and Byleth finds some solace in the fact that he too will have to wash the paint off himself now.

* * *

Now that students actually come to Byleth’s office hours, it’s a lot less lonely. She keeps the cat treats hidden in her drawers until after her office hours end, and no one is any wiser to the furry friends who keep visiting her. She’s just finished going over historical archer armor with Bernadetta when Hilda knocks on her door, and she’s barely even halfway through ornamental design when Dimitri peers in meekly from outside. Her candy stash is getting suspiciously light, but she’s definitely willing to replace it.

“So you can put accessory portions in your armor design,” she says, “but it can’t be in the way of functional portions, or it has to serve some function itself.”

Hilda nods dutifully. “Alright, thank you, Professor!” She claps Dimitri over the shoulder on her way out. “You’re up, your Highness.”

Dimitri, for his part, does not seem nervous or alarmed by her casual gesture. If anything, his apprehension seems to fade as he approaches Byleth. “Professor Eisner, I apologize if this is the wrong time, or if I’m asking the wrong person.”

“This is the perfectly right time,” Byleth assures him, “and while I might not be the right person, I can definitely direct you to them.”

At this, Dimitri relaxes entirely. “Thank you, Professor.” He takes his seat in her desk chair, while she sits cross-legged on her desk. “I’ve been… embarking on a personal project away from my peers lately, and I was wondering if you could possibly help me with it.”

“Do tell.”

“The monastery has taken in a lot of war orphans over the years. The oldest ones are nearing the age of students here at the academy,” he says. “Many of them are illiterate. I’m sure you understand that they most likely will never become students here.”

And it really is a tragedy, how some of the brightest minds are crushed so early on due to circumstance. “I understand,” she whispers, gesturing to Dimitri to continue.

“I’ve been teaching some of them basic fighting techniques, mainly for self defense, but there is only so much we can do with sticks in the children’s quarters.” He takes in a deep breath. “I understand that there may not be a time for this, but is there any way I could borrow the courtyard for, say, an hour a week to practice with the children?”

“That’s very noble of you,” Byleth says, and she means it. “Thank you for telling me this, Mr. Blaiddyd. I can certainly book the courtyard for practice sessions without a problem. The only thing I need is a time and date.”

In the end, they decide on Wednesdays, from 3:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon. It’s a good time since Byleth happens to have a prep period at that time, and it’s immediately followed by her office hours so she can rest. Dimitri worries about using training weapons,  _ will it cost too much to the academy, _ and Byleth assures him that it will not cost him a penny.

It’s like this that Byleth remembers that Dimitri is still a sweetheart behind the fear and the fighting. His laughter is so genuine that it hurts to think about the monster he could become, the monster she’s  _ seen _ him become. If only she could freeze this laughter in time and pass it onto a future version of him: a brilliant king, triumphant and undying.

“Thank you once more, Professor,” Dimitri says animatedly. “I hope I haven't kept you too long."

"Rest assured, Mr. Blaiddyd, I can talk as long as you need," she says. "Go get some dinner before all that is left is cabbage."

He leaves with a rare smile on his face, and as Byleth takes the office hours sign off her door, she's glad to have put that smile there.

Byleth wanders out into the hallway after that. It’s getting late, and what she said to Dimitri still applies to herself. She skipped lunch  _ again, _ and while her stomach doesn’t growl like she thinks it might, she should probably invest more into her own nutrition. She sees no students coming towards her room, turns her sign around, and starts to wonder if the dining hall is even open anymore.

So it’s a surprise to her when she makes the turn towards the dining hall and very nearly bumps into Edelgard. “Ms. von Hresvelg, I apologize,” she says, holding her hands out to steady the younger girl even though there was no real collision between them. There’s a large kettle filled with water in Edelgard’s hands, and while a bit has sloshed out, it’s not enough to have stained or soaked anything. “Making tea, I suppose?”

Edelgard nods once curtly, though her face betrays her embarrassment. “I do enjoy a cup of bergamot in the evenings,” she says. “Would you be willing to join me tonight, Professor?”

“I’m afraid I will have to decline for today. I haven’t had any food since breakfast.” She looks at the kettle in Edelgard’s hands a little guiltily. “It would be my pleasure to join you for tea another time, though. What’s your schedule like?”

Truth be told, she’s scared for Edelgard. There’s too much hidden in the acid of her words and the bitter of her smile. Edelgard puts up an iron wall of authority and stability and hides a world of torment that Byleth has only begun to scratch the surface of. If she is to prevent the sins of the past, there has to be some way to talk to Edelgard, to talk her out of hiding behind the mask of a killer.

Some small part of her remembers a mug one of her students presented her in a past timeline. It wasn’t a large mug, nor was it particularly shiny or interesting, but it was witty. The word “sinceri-tea” is written across it in black cursive, with a definition inside the mug:  _ sinceri-tea, n. The quality of being truthful or honest over tea. _ She thinks it’s fitting for the situation.

And sure enough, Edelgard brightens in an instant. “That would be wonderful, Professor,” she says, all at once looking more like a lively young princess than a girl torn from her childhood. “I have a collection of fine teas from home in Enbarr, and I can have more brought here if you would like to sample some.”

“Thank you, Ms. von Hresvelg. I can bring my own teas as well.”

Edelgard’s schedule is a bit more packed than Dimitri’s, it seems, due to the sheer number of electives she’s taking. “I apologize, Professor,” she says abashedly, “that’s my timeslot for the firearms class.”

“Your week is pretty booked, isn’t it,” Byleth remarks. “Are you free over the weekends?”

“I usually head into town on Saturday, would Sunday be okay?”

“Absolutely. Then I’ll meet you… Sunday at four?”

“That would be an excellent time, my teacher. Thank you.” Edelgard sketches a curtsey the best she can with a kettle in her arms. “I won’t keep you any longer, then.”

Byleth dips her head, and by the time she looks up again, Edelgard is gone.

It’s not as horribly late as she thought it might be; the clock says it’s not even eight yet, but Manuela has reprimanded her more than once for keeping her office hours open for so long every day, and it’s about time she tried to actively take care of herself. She’s pouring herself a cup of water from the pitcher when someone approaches behind her, and from the way the laughter seems to turn into conspiratory whispers Byleth knows exactly who’s here.

“Mr. von Riegan, I presume you’re here to apologize for making me eat paint earlier today.”

“Aw, Teach, not even a hello for your favourite student?”

“I don’t play favourites.”

That’s a lie. Byleth has always enjoyed conversing with Claude the most among all her students. He’s witty and highly knowledgeable, and they’ve always shared a common interest in history. She absolutely picks favourites. The only problem there is that she has  _ many _ favourites, enough that she was able to compile a whole class of twenty-four out of them.

A little white lie can’t hurt.

“Hmm. It’s nice to see you around out of office hours, Teach,” Claude says, pouring himself some water. Byleth notes with mild curiosity that he’s not actually pouring it into a cup, but rather a watering can. “Oh dang, you don’t get dinner until pretty late, huh.”

“I’m rather used to it. On the road, we often only ate one meal a day. I daresay I’m becoming spoiled.”

“What happened to healthy habits, healthy minds, Teach?”

“Bold of you to assume I follow my own advice.”

Claude laughs. “Well, I’ll leave you to your dinner,” he says. “I’ve got some plants to check up on in the greenhouse.”

“I’ll go with you, then,” she tells him, and watches as he immediately brightens. “I have a few plants I’ve been growing in there. It’s about time I checked up on them.”

“Oh really, what are they?”

Byleth tells Claude about her little vegetable plot as they walk to the greenhouse. The hallways are barely lit by the moonlight, and they both look ghostly and pale as their footsteps clatter down the veins of the monastery. No one else comes to the greenhouse at this hour, after all, so when she pushes open the door to the greenhouse, she’s greeted by verdant silence.

“That’s my vegetable plot,” she says, pointing at her small box. It’s neatly packed with soil, with the seeds that the florist gave her. They’re marked along the side of the box—carrots, lettuce, a single Noa fruit plant that has yet to sprout. “I don’t know how often to water it.”

“You’ve probably never tried to grow your own things on the road as a merc, right?” Claude kneels down and tips his watering can over her lettuce sprouts. “Carrots need a lot more space to grow, and vegetables tend to need a whole lot of water.”

“Oh.”

“The Noa tree is a lot more hardy, though. It needs watering once every, I think two weeks? It probably won’t produce any fruit for the first few years. Gotta grow those roots nice and strong.”

“You know, if it weren’t for you and Dedue, I’m pretty sure my plants would all be dead by now.”

“Ah, Dedue’s good with plants. He’s growing a bunch of roses over on the other side.” Claude grins. “Hey, Teach, you wanna see what I’ve been working on?”

She squats beside him and squints in the direction he’s pointing. “Is that… belladonna?”

“Got it in one.” He sprinkles the base of the bush with water; it’s only then that Byleth notices the little rope fence he’s put up around it, with  _ Do Not Touch! Extremely Lethal _ written on a sign nearby. “I’ve been working on crossbreeding it with other flowers, but belladonna doesn’t bloom until the Garland Moon.”

“You shouldn’t be raising belladonna in the first place,” Byleth says flatly. “You know fully well that if someone dies of this, it will be entirely on your shoulders.”

Claude frowns. “That’s fair,” he says after much contemplation. “But the sign’s there, and so far no one’s touched it. Dedue helped me put up the fence and I managed to convince Ignatz to lend me the red paint to dye it. Besides, no one comes to the greenhouse anyways. It’s pretty much just Dedue and I, and Ignatz when he comes in to sketch, and maybe like two matrons.”

“And me.”

“And you. See, Teach, it’s gonna be okay.” The grin that Claude gives her is anything but assuring, but his confidence is unparalleled. “I’ll get rid of the belladonna bush once I’m done the crossbreeding, I promise.”

Byleth sighs. “Fine,” she says, “but you understand that I have to keep an eye on this project of yours.”

“For safety reasons.”

“For safety reasons. And it would do me good to keep track of my plants as well.” She glares at the moon outside, wishing it would shine some light on the time. “How about Thursdays after my office hours end? We can grab some food and come here.”

“Can I ask you stupid questions about the Valla Cycle?”

“Only if you answer my stupid questions about Jugdrali legends.”

Claude laughs, clapping Byleth on the shoulder. “It’s a deal, Teach!”

They spend the walk back to the dorms talking about the mythical figures of Deirdre and Julia of Jugdrali legend, and their connection to the Archanean deity Naga. “I think it’s neat that the legend has survived for so long,” Claude muses, “without once dying.”

“The second death of any person is the last time their name is uttered,” Byleth says, “and thus Naga lives on. I wonder if they’ll still utter her name a thousand years from now.”

_ “It has been a thousand years since I walked this earth,” _ Sothis reminds her gracefully,  _ “and the people still know of me. That is a testament to faith and faith alone.” _

“Well, it was nice talking to you,” she sighs. “Are you turning in for the night?”

“Nah, I think I’m gonna grab some snacks from the dining hall.”

“Mm. Perhaps I might as well, later.” She waves, and he gives her a wink and a playful salute as he turns towards the dining hall.

As soon as Byleth makes it safely back to her own room, she has to let out a breath of relief. A million futures swim through her mind—a byproduct of being the mortal vessel of the progenitor god, she supposes. She thinks about the way Dimitri's stare goes glassy whenever she uses her knife to open letters, and the way Edelgard went so still when she shook a set of chains in a demonstration, and the way Claude still smiles with all his teeth and does not trust her.

It hurts.

The sad, lonely truth about being the only one to know of the horrible futures that could have occurred is that Byleth cannot confide in anyone but a cynical god and three equally cynical cats. At the end of the day, Byleth is so tired of war, tired of being a political pawn in a game she has no control over. Everyone knows that once the fighting begins, she is the only key to victory, and so everyone wants her on their team.

Byleth doesn't want to fight her friends anymore. 

So she plans. She thinks of all the things she could say to Edelgard, to Dimitri, to Claude, to get them to trust her as an individual and not as a weapon. Now that she has time to say those things, she's got a lot of cards to play, and if she doesn't do it right, she'll have their blood on her hands once again. 

_ “Split her mind, body and soul in half. Plunge your dagger past his eye and into his head. Shoot him out of the sky like a comet. It's the only way.” _

_ They are my friends, _ Byleth thinks miserably.  _ I just want to see them live.  _

_ “Life is disgusting. And they were truly your friends, you wouldn't be a professor at this damned institution. You'd all be dead.” _

Byleth slides down the flat of the door, curling in on herself as she hits the floor.  _ There has to be a way. I have to be able to save them all and stop this bloody war from happening again. _

_ “If there is one, I haven’t found it,” _ Sothis says. “ _ I can only control time. Fate is not so kind.” _

_ (Time isn’t so kind, either, _ Byleth wants to say.)

(She says nothing.)

* * *

“Hey, that’s Professor Eisner,” Ferdinand says. “Is she going to sit with her father?”

“Nah, remember, she said he’s out for the week doing reconnaissance work by the West coast,” Sylvain reminds him. “Her exact words were  _ running errands for the Archbishop, _ I think.”

“Sounds brutal.”

Bernadetta peers over the edge of her book. “She looks kinda sad, don’t you think? A little lonely.”

“Hey, why don’t we just call her over here?” Claude suggests, and before anyone can stop him, he stands up, in the middle of the dining hall, and waves aggressively. “Hey, Teach! Join us?”

And beyond everyone’s expectations, Professor Eisner actually looks up and starts to walk their way. “Seiros above,” Lorenz whispers.

“Good evening,” Professor Eisner says. “I trust that none of you are up to any good.” She takes another glance around at their table and its occupants. “Except Marianne and Bernadetta. And Ashe.”

Ashe beams at her. “Thank you, Professor.”

“Oh, I’m suddenly reminded, I  _ must _ thank you for choosing a paint that washed out easily,” Ferdinand says. “It rinsed out easily with just water! I was alarmed when you pulled out that bucket of paint, but it seems my fears were misplaced.”

“I’m not sure what would have happened if the paint weren’t so easily washable.”

“I know Lorenz got a  _ ton _ of it,” Claude says, much to Lorenz’s visible displeasure. “If it weren’t washable, he’d probably be still fanning himself over a fit of the vapours while we speak. Hey, pull up a chair, Teach, don’t let us keep you standing.”

They collectively manage to nab a chair from a nearby table for her. “Did all of you understand today’s lesson?” Professor Eisner asks, taking her seat on the edge of the table. Sylvain, ever the gentleman, scoots to let her move in, which she either ignores or doesn’t notice. “If you have any questions about strategic armor placement, my office hours and my candy stash are open.”

“I liked today’s lesson,” Bernadetta says.

“That’s good. I appreciate that.” Professor Eisner’s dinner tonight seems to be cold pasta and a bowl of early harvest strawberries; she pops one of the latter in her mouth as she relaxes in her seat. “Anything I could improve on?”

They all look at each other, no one quite willing to make eye contact with the professor. Realistically, it shouldn’t be so hard—she’s younger than Mercedes, for Seiros’s sake—but as a generation conditioned to fear authority, the fact that she carries the illustrious title of “professor” alone is enough to strike fear into their very souls.

“... I understand.” If anything, Professor Eisner looks even sadder than before. “I’m glad you all enjoyed the lesson. Do you want me to teach more about the technical side of equipment?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely!” Ferdinand gasps. “Professor, you have an incredibly unique understanding of physical and magical weapons alike, and I’ve never seen anything like it. Please, do teach us more. I think it would do us all much good.”

“Wait, wait, guys, Marianne’s got something to say.”

For her part, Marianne shrinks and flushes at the tips of her ears. “Could we,” she starts, and tries again, “could we do some studies into weapon design? Especially from other nations.”

This is met with nods all around. “I, for one, would love to see an exploration into Valentian weaponry. I suppose Valentian magic is pretty similar to both Archanean and Fódlan magic,” Lorenz offers, “but the construction of their blades is simply divine. My father has a small collection of Valentian swords, and the carving on them is  _ gorgeous.” _

“Ah, that will be closely tied into Valentian history and faith as well, since many of those designs have holy meanings,” Professor Eisner says. Claude visibly lights up at her words. “And we’ll go into the different battlefield customs for Rigel and Zofia as well, since they traditionally worshipped different deities. I’d only cover content from prior to the unification of Valentia, so that there’s still some topics to pick for your presentations.”

“Speaking of presentations, can we choose topics now?”

“Mmm, I’d keep them in mind, but I wouldn’t pick one now. The presentations will be towards the end of the year, so I wouldn’t even worry about them to be honest.” Professor Eisner pushes her bowl of strawberries into the centre of the table. “When the time comes, just pick something you’re confident in studying, and interested in. Strawberry?”

Unwilling to seem impolite, they each take a strawberry, and Professor Eisner takes back her bowl with a satisfied look. “I’ll see to getting a lesson or three on foreign weaponry into my lesson plans for the future. There probably won’t be any this month, but I’ll start introducing various historical and international fighting styles by next month for certain.” She presses a finger to her lips. “Not a word of this to Seteth, alright?”

“Our lips are sealed, Teach.”

She takes the last few bites of her pasta and packs up her dishes. “I’ll leave you to your dinner, then,” she says. “Have a nice evening.”

As she leaves, the sunny smiles of her students are replaced by sheer shock. 

“Did Teach just…?”

“That  _ felt _ weird,” Sylvain comments. “She’s always so stony, so, like…”

“I cannot believe we got her to  _ smile.” _

And indeed, Byleth is smiling as she leaves the dining hall with the remainders of her strawberries. As soon as she’s locked in her own room, she opens the window, and the three cats— _ her _ cats, she thinks—waddle in, mewing for treats. She feeds them each a strawberry.

“We don’t have to believe in fate, or in cynical gods,” she murmurs, running her fingers through the ragdoll’s thick fur. “Just ourselves and our friends.”

She gets a lick to the face for her troubles, and thus the room becomes a little sanctuary: just her, the cats, and her lonely smile.

Saving everyone can wait. They are her friends, and she wants them to  _ live _ for themselves before they live for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends! have you ever gone paintballing? well i have, and it was not very good for my fragile maiden's heart, but the nice thing about paintball paint is that it never really dries - it just gets gooey and washes off with just a little water. that's the stuff we're looking at here with this exercise  
> also, i am super duper adamant about maintaining friendships between the houses, and especially between the house leaders - or, as i like to call them, the power rangers. we didn't get much of it in the base game, and what little we got in Cindered Shadows has just fueled my need for more. they are very much equals, after all, on the battlefield and in court and in the classroom, and i don't think anyone's quite explored that to its max potential yet. i'm really quite curious to see how it'll play out, to be honest  
> thank you all for your wonderful reviews and all the kudos. i've been having a bit of a rough time lately (read: getting vibe checked by midterms and seasonal depression) and every time i get the email notification my internal monologue kinda just turns into a high pitched squee of delight. thank you all for your continued support! <3


	6. to the drawing board (and beyond)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The monthly mission is on, and the three houses ready themselves for the battle of a lifetime.

The laughter of the Great Tree Moon begins to transition into the sweet singing of the Harpstring Moon in sunlight and young grass. Dorothea starts to teach the other girls to sing hymns to Saint Macuil in preparation of the celebrations as others put up decorations and learn lively dances. The food in the dining hall gets a little more flavourful with the earliest harvests of the year.

They also approach the end of the month, and with the end of the month comes the assignment crash. Everyone and their mother is cramming for tests and handing in essays and pulling all-nighters to finish old assignments before Professors von Essar and von Hyrm eat them alive. Professor Casagranda is a little more lenient, though she does give the fair warning that she will take longer to mark.

Most of all, everyone lives in fear of Professor Eisner. The moniker _Ashen Demon_ has spread across the school like wildfire, and the full scope of the new combat teacher’s reputation is revealed. Daughter of the Blade Breaker or not, it seems they’ve all underestimated just how terrifying she can be. Tales of her battle exploits almost dim in comparison to stories of her tactical prowess, of which Leonie is the most successful purveyor.

“She’s never led entire armies, but she can turn a single battalion _into_ an army under her command,” she crows to the students around her. Illicit tales like this can only be told under the cover of darkness, after all, and the library serves a perfect purpose for this. “I’ve heard that she once faced an entire army of invading soldiers with only ten men and still emerged victorious. They say—”

They are then promptly kicked out of the library for noise-related offenses, but Leonie just continues her tale in the dining hall, unaware of the large crowd gathered around her and even more unaware of their very young combat professor who has infiltrated the group and is now listening with considerable amusement.

The worst of the rumours are still those about the upcoming mission. Traditionally, the mission at the end of the first month of the semester has always been the mock battle between the three houses. A few reputable sources (Professor Casagranda, both while drunk and while sober) have mentioned that this year’s first mission was planned and designed by Professor Eisner, though, and no one knows what she’s got in mind.

For her part, Professor Eisner has done nothing to reveal her plans for the mock battle. All three houses have attempted, at different times, to send people to her office hours to try and wheedle an agenda out of her. All three houses have failed. Everyone has gotten the exact same answer: _the end-of-month mission counts as an assignment towards your grade. You will be graded based on your performance by both me and your house instructors._

Behind closed doors, however, Byleth shares a conspiratorial document with Sothis, who cackles with glee. Despite the tense animosity that has passed between them, at her core Sothis is still very much a troublemaker, and as she scans over Byleth’s plans once again, it seems she has much to say. _“I still cannot believe you managed to get this approved by Seteth.”_

“I couldn’t believe it either,” Byleth says. “My father tells me he’ll be watching from the sidelines with popcorn when this goes down.”

_“And you aren’t?”_

“Alas, I have an active part in this pandemonium.” She taps the page with her fountain pen; Sothis makes a sound of understanding. “If the three houses think they’re all so powerful, then we’ll put them in a real battle. Simulate real conditions. Let them decide who is friend and who is foe.

“We’ll see who turns out the winner.”

* * *

**_MISSION ASSIGNMENT_ **

_Traditionally, this mission has always been a mock battle between the three houses. This tradition shall be upheld. The mock battle will take place on Wednesday the 30th of the Great Tree Moon. Tuesday the 29th will be an official planning day. The dining hall will be open all day._

_House leaders are to pick seven (7) “generals” to join them as leaders for this assignment. Weapons of iron or steel are permitted (including arrow tips). A list of permitted tomes can be found on Professor Casagranda’s door. Healers may use any staves available in the armory or their own. All students are invited to acquire three (3) vulneraries from the infirmary for no cost._

_More details to come._

* * *

“What does she even _mean_ by _more details to come?”_ Bernadetta wails. “Do we have to plan without half the information?”

Edelgard glares at the blackboard. “It’s got to be strategic,” she surmises. “The withheld information must be something that changes the game. I assume it’s got something to do with how the mock battle is formatted, or the win conditions, or something of that nature.”

The scribbles of battle plans in ghostly chalk are a stark contrast to Hubert’s neat handwriting beside it, laying out their schedule for the day. Edelgard erases a diagram of a pincer attack as Petra fills in a shield wall formation beside her. Linhardt pulls books off the shelf and reads pages upon pages of old battle strategies. Ferdinand and Caspar bicker over the weapons they have available to them, and when to secure a good set of lances from the armory.

Even if they’re an odd bunch, Edelgard thinks she’s picked her generals well. There wasn’t any way she wouldn’t have chosen Hubert, but the others work with them well. Between the chaos of Caspar and Linhardt’s plans and Dorothea’s gentle encouragement, Edelgard has never felt so at peace during such a tense time.

Right now, what she really misses is Professor Eisner’s guidance. She wants nothing more than to sit down with Professor Eisner and talk tactics over a cup of tea, but that would be impossible given the impending mock battle. It's a weird feeling, considering she's never had to do it before, but Edelgard severely misses having a mentor to guide her through the motions of a strong army.

“Alright,” she says, brow sore from being furrowed at the blackboard for so long, “we don’t know much about what Professor Eisner has planned. But we can evaluate how it’s going to go down nonetheless.”

She erases the top half of the blackboard, making sure to leave Petra’s (incredibly detailed!) shield wall illustration. Picking up the chalk, she writes down five words, words that she has a feeling will stick with her for a long time:

_What would Professor Eisner do?_

The others stare at the blackboard in mild confusion. “What would Professor Eisner do?” Caspar echoes, squeezing himself into Linhardt’s chair. “She’d probably make it deliberately weird to mess with us.”

“That only tells us that we need to be prepared for anything,” Linhardt grunts. “Get your own chair, Caspar.”

“Absolutely not, Linny.”

“Professor Eisner is having the habit of purposely making exercises _different,”_ Petra points out. “She enjoys making the exercises strange and unusual. But she is having the purpose of testing us for real battle.”

“That’s a good point, Petra,” Edelgard says, jotting down _realistic_ under the big title. “We forget often that she’s a seasoned mercenary despite her youth. We have not fought any wars ourselves. Professor Eisner is trying to simulate what a real battle is for us.”

“In that case, we should also pay attention to the things she’s taught us recently,” Hubert says. “Professor Eisner seems to be one who will pit our mastery of her course against that of our peers.”

Right. They have their peers to worry about. Edelgard’s been so caught up in this idea of tactics that she’s forgotten that they have _two_ equally powerful armies to march against. The two other house leaders are bright in their own ways, fully able to turn war to art just as she can. One slip-up against them could spell death.

Tactically, she’s more worried about Claude. There’s something about the Riegan heir that feels shadier than most of the students at the academy. Edelgard has heard rumours that he’s fairly proficient in brewing poisons, that he’s a talented trapper and hunter. If she is to win the mock battle, she cannot forget that Claude is very much her intellectual equal, and possibly even surpasses her in the tactical sense.

Dimitri, on the other hand, is a spot of blue and gold hovering in her peripherals, dancing in and out of sight. She remembers the terrifying speed of their last spar, the adrenaline that nearly tugged her axe from her hand, the way Professor Eisner had to stop the spar to make sure they didn’t _die,_ and it scares her. So what if they stand shoulder to shoulder, heirs to their nations? If she cannot maintain her composure before her greatest political rival, then she cannot expect to maintain her throne.

Either way, she has forgotten that the mock battle is inherently still a mock battle. And that could spell disaster.

“New plan,” she announces, walking over to the section of the blackboard with the schedule. “We’re going to evaluate what the other houses are going to do, too. Knowing the game well will help us, but in the long run, we’re going to need to know the enemy’s strategy better than they do.”

It’s a three way chess game, really. Edelgard draws out a triangle and a crown at the centre. “This is the path we walk,” she says, “and we’re going to walk it proud and strong.”

* * *

The door opens, and Dimitri looks up from his battle map to see Sylvain and Mercedes entering with food and utensils. “Good news, the dining hall was more than willing to provide us with extra bowls,” Sylvain announces with a grin. “We got salad and pasta for everyone.”

“Thank you, Mercedes,” Ashe says, taking a bowl and a fork. “Ooh, meat sauce.”

“Don’t I get thanks too?”

“Just eat your damn salad, Sylvain.”

Amidst the chaos, Dimitri retreats from the table, and relaxes when Dedue hands him a bowl of pasta. “Thank you, Dedue,” he says, and is greeted with a firm nod. “Does everyone have food yet? We have a lot to go over.”

There are several diagrams sketched across the blackboard, including a really cool shield-vaulting thing that Annette dug out of a two-hundred year old fighting manual. “We can’t really do anything about the nature of the battle until Professor Eisner gives us the rest of the details, but we _can_ prepare for the other houses in the meantime.” He gestures at the board with his fork, chewing through the pasta as quickly as he can without getting an earful from Ingrid. “What do we project for the Black Eagles and the Golden Deer?”

“The Black Eagles are always incredibly fast,” Mercedes says helpfully. “Should we try to counter that?”

“We can try, but I doubt our speed will match up to theirs,” Dimitri admits. “Remember what Professor Eisner said about using your strength against the enemy’s weakness? The Adrestian fighting style mimicks the eagle in flight. They are relentless and fast, but if we stand unmoving, we can take them on.”

“We have no idea what the Golden Deer are going to be like, though,” Ingrid points out. “I’ve sparred with Leonie and Hilda and Raphael, and _all three of them_ have wildly different fighting styles because they all come from such different places. The Leicester Alliance has so much going on. We’ll never pinpoint one weakness.”

“Can we operate a wall of shields?” Ashe asks. “Or even just someone shielding and someone behind providing long-range backup?”

“That’s a good start.” Dimitri draws a stick figure with a star behind a stick figure with a rectangle. “We don’t have to cover for _all_ of their weaknesses; we just need to cover our own strengths.” He offers a princely smile. “Lions stick to their pride, right?”

This gets a lot of cheer, and Dimitri feels his confidence rise. “Let’s return to the manuals and see if there’s any other formations we can find,” he says. “Felix, Sylvain, could you two please check the armory and take note of the shields available?”

They leave soon after that, and Dimitri settles into a chair with a book of Jugdrali fighting techniques. Dedue settles beside him with a bowl of salad and picks at the pieces. “Don’t push yourself, your highness.”

“I’m not,” Dimitri says. _Use the flat of the blade to knock your enemy off their feet. The ankles are a weak point if your enemy does not have reinforcement at that area._ “There’s just a lot to cover, Dedue. I want to secure this win for our house.”

“Permission to be frank, your highness?”

“You don’t even need to ask.”

Dedue sighs. “I can virtually hear you thinking, your highness. There’s a lot on your mind outside of the battle, isn’t there?” He smiles. “This is about making an impression on Professor Eisner.”

And indeed, it is. Dimitri can’t help but feel like he’s competing with Edelgard and Claude for Professor Eisner’s favour and mentorship sometimes. He can’t draw her into a conversation about tactics like Edelgard, or banter with her about history like Claude. Hell, it took him three tries to approach her in her office hours to even ask to borrow the courtyard to train with the monastery kids!

Claude is witty. Edelgard is sharp. What does he have but strength?

So he has to be unshakeable, unmoveable, unphasable. Anything they throw at him, he must be able to rebound from. Professor Eisner’s guidance won’t get him anywhere and everywhere he needs to go; he needs to be a strong leader to begin with, and his faith in his roots must be indestructible.

(He isn’t all that indestructible, he thinks, but he’s gotten pretty good at covering it up over the years.)

“It’s beyond that.” A little playfully, he plucks a leaf of lettuce from Dedue’s bowl and eats it, more a gesture between friends than man and liege. “I must prove first to myself that I can be a capable leader. If I cannot lead my house to victory in a _mock_ battle, how can I expect to win when I am facing down real armies in a true war?”

“It is a _mock_ battle, your highness. That is precisely why I worry for you,” Dedue says. “Don’t stress over a battle we all know you will win regardless.”

Dimitri dimples. “Thank you for your confidence in me, Dedue, but I am nothing without all of you.”

“It’s as you said, your highness. Lions stick to their pride.”

* * *

When Claude makes it back to the common room with a pitcher of water and pockets full of apples, Ignatz’s simple doodle of the goddess on the blackboard has somehow expanded into a full on mural of the saints and the Ten Elites. Hilda is perched on the table, giving her suggestions in true Hilda nature. Marianne is dozing off with a chipmunk in her lap. Raphael is eating his fifth apple of the hour.

Altogether, it’s Claude’s kind of pandemonium, the kind that only comes with friendship.

“Alright, here’s the water,” he says, setting it on the table. Lorenz immediately shoots him a grateful smile and pours himself a cup. “I solemnly swear I did not spike the other pitchers in the dining hall, though I was plenty tempted to put a little something in the Blue Lions’ salad.”

“Stomach poison?” Hilda drawls.

“Obviously. But alas, Sylvain was the one retrieving it,” Claude sighs, “and he is a menace of a force equivalent to mine own. Also, Mercedes was there, and I don’t think she has such a swell opinion of me after she saw the belladonna plant.”

“I don’t think Mercedes had such a swell opinion of you to begin with,” Leonie quips.

Claude just rolls his eyes and takes his seat on the table next to Hilda. “Alright, so. Mock battle. I have a few ideas, but since you guys are supposed to be my “generals”, I kinda want to see what you have in mind too.”

“You said we’re going to be fighting in the field, right? We can use that to our advantage,” Lysithea says. “There’s a bunch of hills that we can use to stay hidden and all that.”

“I like your thinking!” Claude looks around, finds the map they’ve procured of the field where they’ll be fighting, and slaps it in the centre of the table. “Here’s the hills, and here’s where we’re starting out. Do you think we can split off into smaller groups to stay better hidden?”

Lorenz frowns. “That increases our chances of getting decimated in battle, though,” he says. “Collectively, we’re not nearly as fast as the Black Eagles, and we won’t be able to put a dent in the Blue Lions’ defenses.”

Claude smiles. It’s not the pleasant one. “Yes, but we don’t _need_ to fight either of them,” he says. “We just need to get them to fight each other.”

He can see it dawn on everyone, one at a time. “Let’s face it, none of us have fighting styles that even remotely similar,” he says. “I don’t even draw a bowstring the same way Ignatz does. But that just means we cover so many more bases. And we can use that to our advantage. Confusion is the name of the game, guys. We don’t have to beat the Eagles and the Lions. We just need to get them to beat each other up.”

“So we lure them into each other instead,” Hilda summarizes, “but won’t we have to split our manpower?”

“It’ll leave us open to attack,” Ignatz adds. “Any strategy we carry out will have to be done with about half the people we have.”

“That is true.” Claude has been worried about that part, if he’s honest with himself. “So we’ll have to be fast, and we’ll have to be ready for anything. Flexibility is the name of the game here.”

He gets up from the table and claps his hands. “Now! Let’s get some productive stuff done,” he says, “and we can do some analysis for what their Highnesses are planning so we can counter-plan.”

The Deer disperse off after that. Claude has faith in his generals, but truth be told, he’s a little concerned about their attachments to the other students. One of the things about having a hard time making friends is that you don't get attached when you have to meet them in the pit and fight, which he's found over the years since he was young. Incidentally, it's applied just as well to his schooling, as he prepares to face their Highnesses on the battlefield for the first real time.

Oh sure, he's sparred with Edelgard and Dimitri, but he knows they're absolutely blood-thirsty monsters when it comes to actual war. Edelgard has a mind sharper than an eagle's claws and uses it in a game of psychological warfare. If Claude's strength lies in boosting his troops, hers is in demoralizing her enemies. The thought of facing her on the battlefield is just as horrific as actually fighting her, face to face. She's a whirlwind of words and anger and ax all at once.

Dimitri, on the other hand, is an iron wall. He's one of the few people that Claude can't tease out of sheer willpower. Like a lasting monolith, he stands strong against even the worst enemies, using his own strength to crush his foes even without tactical advantage. Claude recalls reading a Jugdrali tactics manual about the best defense being a good offense, and thinks about Dimitri and his strength.

Claude can't be Edelgard or Dimitri, but he can sure outplay them both. He remembers watching them during the paint exercise, turning on each other like wild animals in the courtyard. The looks of animosity on their faces were something he'd never expected, and by the way Professor Eisner had to cut the spar short, it didn't seem like she'd expected it either. He doesn't need to win on the battle front if his two enemies are going to rip each other apart anyways. He just needs to rile them up against each other.

That all said and done, he's got one other thing to worry about: Professor Eisner. She's the wildcard in this mock battle, and with or without her guidance he's going to win. Whatever she has in store for them must be the big game-changer, the thing that breaks their spirits the most. This mock battle is just a way for them to prove themselves - a demonstration of strength from each of their countries. He knows she can be his friend. It's up to him to prove to her why it's worth it.

(And hey, if that means he has a partner-in-crime for his greenhouse experiments, that's all the better.)

Raphael wanders over with a stack of books in hand. "Should we look into Adrestian and Faerghus fighting manuals?" he asks, and it's only then that Claude notices the red and blue covers. "It'll help us see what the others are up to, and what we need to prepare for."

"That would be great, Raph." Claude claps him over the back. "That's exactly what we need to prepare for."

* * *

**_MISSION ASSIGNMENT—UPDATE_ **

_The rules of the mock battle will be as such:_

_1) No student of any house is to attempt to sabotage students of another house or their own before the mission. This is considered academic dishonesty and will be punished accordingly._

_2) Instructors will not be directing the houses. This mock battle is entirely to be planned and conducted by the student body._

_3) This mission will not be an all-out war of attrition, but a capture-the-flag type game. The flag in this game will be Professor Eisner. You will locate her and hold her captive. She will fight back. The last team to have Professor Eisner at the end of the battle wins the mission and receives bonus points._

_4) Distracting factors will influence the battle at multiple points. Your objective, however, is still to locate and capture the flag._

_5) To have possession of the flag, you must take Professor Eisner’s knife. You will NOT use said knife in any capacity. Once you have possession of the knife, she will continue to attack you to recover said knife. Be aware of your surroundings._

_6) If you are wounded, put your hands on your head and retreat to your starting area. If you spot a student with their hands on their head, do not attack them. Any infractions of this rule will result in instant expulsion._

_7) To win this battle, you must be in possession of Professor Eisner’s knife at 3:30._

_The battle will take place from 2:00 to 3:30 tomorrow afternoon. Healers will be available on site._

_For any additional questions, please see Professor Eisner. Her office hours will be open today from 5:00 to 8:00 in her own room._

* * *

“Professor, you can’t _possibly_ expect this to go well.”

Byleth throws her jacket over her chair. “Seteth, when I said my office hours were open, I meant _for the students,”_ she says. “If you have a concern, please leave a message instead.”

In response, Seteth just scowls at her. “This is not a joking matter! You are actively endangering yourself—and the students, and the _faculty_ —for a game of capture the flag?”

“Actually, Archbishop Rhea said she’d participate too.” 

_“The Archbishop?!”_

Byleth shifts a stack of papers aside and plunks herself down on her desk. “I was sparring with her earlier, which is why I forgot to put up the rules.” She gives him a pointed stare. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my students have questions for me.”

“Professor, you can’t begin to think this is appropriate,” Seteth argues. “The Officers Academy is the best academic institution in all of Fódlan. The future leaders of this continent are here! What kind of example are you trying to set for them here?”

“First of all, Seteth, I beg to differ. The _present_ leaders of the continent are here,” she says. “Ionius von Hresvelg has not truly been in power in nearly a decade, the royal family of Faerghus has been reduced to two members, and the Leicester Alliance’s only heir is teaching me how to grow vegetables in his down time. I may have learned to wield a sword before I could speak, but so did they.

“The example I want to set for them is one of strength. They’re young, yes, but they were born into power. I’m not here to teach them how to write essays or how to calculate limits. I have to teach them to _kill._ I hope you understand that I don’t take my job lightly, Seteth. I have power, just as they do. I am teaching them to wield it for good.”

Seteth stares at her, and she holds his gaze, resolute. “Please reconsider,” he finally says, a little weakly. “What would you say to the royalty of Fódlan? What would you have them tell you?”

Byleth raises an eyebrow, slipping off her desk. “Why don’t we find out?”

She opens the door, and the floodgate of frantic students opens. “Alright, simmer down, everyone, one at a time,” she says, as Seteth stands terrified and tries to retreat into the corner. “One at a time. Single file. Please let Father Seteth out, thank you.”

For his part, Seteth shoots her a desperate look and absconds through the flock of students.

The grand majority of the students coming to her now are asking about weapons: is this lance permitted, can I use those arrows, are we allowed to cast that spell. Byleth answers each one dutifully, as a teacher should. Yes, you can use that lance. If you want to use those arrows I’d recommend using a longbow instead of a recurve. No, that spell is not allowed for this mission, but it will be for the next.

And strangely, not one of the “generals” or the leaders have showed up. As the clock ticks into six o’clock, Byleth just starts to assume they’ve got things sorted out, and that their questions aren’t as pressing or something of that nature.

By a quarter to eight, most of the students are gone. Byleth quietly directs a student to Manuela for uniform help, and another to the armory staff for bow adjustments. She’s just about ready to pack it up and go grab a quick dinner when someone knocks at the door.

“Professor Eisner?”

It’s Marianne, demure and angelic as she quickly shuffles into the room. “I hope I’m not imposing,” she says, in a tiny, tiny voice.

“Absolutely not. Come take a seat.”

Even as she sits, Marianne seems to shrink, all of her courage leaving her. “I… have a concern,” she says, and Byleth leans forward. “Though I feel as though it may be unnecessary.”

“Miss von Edmund, I assure you, if you have a concern it is absolutely not unnecessary to bring it up with me,” Byleth tells her. “Especially if it’s for tomorrow’s mission.”

Marianne won’t meet her eyes, but that’s just as well when she starts to talk. “I don't think being a healer is so good for me," she says quietly. “I don’t see nearly enough action on the battlefield as my peers from the back lines. With no experience on the battlefield, I… I’m useless.”

“Oh.” Byleth motions for her to close the door, and Marianne obliges, eventually taking her seat meekly at the edge of the chair. “Miss von Edmund, I know you understand as much as I do that healers are an integral part of any army.”

“I understand.”

“You’re right in saying that being limited to the back lines will be detrimental in terms of experience, and I fully encourage you to explore your boundaries outside the healing arts. Come tell me at any time during a lesson or during office hours, and I’ll help you change trajectory to whatever weapon you want. It’s only been a week since I got here. I can’t expect you to master a weapon in a week, but we’ll have time to work together over the semester.

"That doesn't mean you can't innovate, though. There are many powerful mages and healers alike who have taken up the sword during their lifetimes." It just so happens that Byleth cannot remember any of these mages, so instead, she recites the incantation for fire under her breath and watches as the flame starts to dance across her palm and over the back of her hand. Marianne stares in starry-eyed wonder. "Myself included. My father trained me in many physical weapons, but I was more magically-inclined for a period of time. You don't have to stick to the constant formula of mage or soldier or archer or healer. There are other options open to you."

"But... the certification exams..."

"The certification exams are there to tell you what you're good at," Byleth says, "and more importantly, to tell potential employers what you're good at. It's a lot more useful when you're a mercenary. At the end of the day, you get to decide for yourself what you want to be, and how you want to fight. We don't make soldiers here at the Officers Academy, Miss von Edmund. We make leaders. And that means that you get to pioneer your own path sometimes."

She reaches into her desk, digs into the bag, and fishes out the first candy she finds: a taffy. "It also means you don't have to be afraid to ask for help," she says, handing it to her student. "So don't worry about asking things, alright?"

"Alright." Marianne sniffles, though her ever-dark demeanour seems to have faded a little. "Thank you, Professor."

She leaves just as quietly as she came, and her place is taken by none other than her three house leaders. “Hey Teach,” Claude says nonchalantly, “no cats today?”

“They come and go,” she says, “and I don’t keep them here. I presume they’ve been staying out more since it’s been getting warmer.”

Edelgard nods. “An astute observation, as always, Professor. Pardon our intrusion, but we have… a few questions.”

“It’s not an intrusion,” Byleth sighs. “The sign says that I am holding office hours, does it not? Why is everyone apologizing for intruding?”

The house leaders share a nervous glance between them. “It’s just… It’s Saturday, Professor, you should be enjoying your weekend,” Dimitri says. “And yet you’re holding a three hour open office for us to visit. It’s very admirable of you.”

“Oh.”

Claude gives her a little mock applause, and the other two join in. She humours them with a curtsey, or at least the imitation of one given she’s still seated on her desk. “Thank you, thank you. Now, what is it that you have to ask?”

And there comes the apprehension, the nervous energy again. “Well, Professor, it’s just,” Dimitri says, “you’re putting yourself as the flag.”

“We’re not doubting your battle capabilities, but,” Edelgard says, and pauses, “there is much to be worried about. There are three houses at the academy— nearly two hundred students. Professor, we don't want you to overexert yourself for a mock battle."

It's moments like this that make Byleth feel the most warm and cozy. She thinks herself to be a rather cold and bland woman, but the truth of the matter is that she cares, perhaps more than she should, for her students (her friends). To see them care for her so much in return—

It's rather touching.

"Professor, you're smiling," Dimitri says softly. "I'd never thought I'd see it."

"Teach? The epitome of blank terror?" Claude teases. "It's good to see you smile."

Oh. So she is. "Thank you, all three of you. Knowing that my students are so considerate for my sake gives me a little more hope for the future of Fodlan."

This gets a laugh out of the three of them. "I've fought worse," she says, thinking about the armies she's faced and the dragons she's killed and all the times she's dealt the final blow to one of them. "Be assured that I won't fall out of sheer exhaustion tomorrow."

"Alright." Edelgard certainly doesn't look convinced; she shouldn't be, considering what Byleth's about to do tomorrow. "But please, don't push yourself, my Teacher."

"I won't. You have my word."

They seem satisfied with this answer, and she looks at the clock. "My, it's nearly eight," she realizes. "Have you three eaten today?"

"Um," Edelgard says, in a very un-Edelgard-like manner. "Lunch was at eleven-thirty."

"Mercedes and Sylvain got us pasta and salad," says Dimitri, who eats very little to begin with.

"I had an apple an hour ago?"

Byleth sighs. "Office hours are now over," she says, getting off her desk. "Care to join me for dinner?"

And as they follow her out, Byleth really cannot wait for the mock battle to begin.

* * *

The midday sun is starting to beat down when Byleth finds her place in the battlefield and prepares herself for the exercise.

To the north, Dimitri is starting to set up camp with the Blue Lions—she can vaguely make out the shapes of shields being handed out. In the southwest, Edelgard and her generals are doing a final weapons check and barking out commands. All the way in the far east, Claude is shouting animatedly to the Golden Deer.

They seem confident and prepared for the upcoming battle. A clean clash of red, blue and gold, and they’ll see who’s the winner. Byleth knows it won’t be as simple as one team taking the lead, and the other two struggling to keep up. With the teachers out of the picture, it’ll be evenly paced, and the battle won’t be swayed in any one house’s favour.

She thinks it’ll be one for the history books.

 _You seem like you’re enjoying this,_ Sothis remarks. _A little too much, even._

“Maybe,” Byleth tells her. “But I could say the same for you.”

The progenitor god just laughs.

And as the horn sounds in the distance, Byleth honestly feels like it’s going to be a good battle. Sparring with a few students is one thing—facing them in a simulation of a real war situation is another. For one who despises war as much as she does, she sure is looking forward to seeing how her students react to the gambit she’s made, and the challenge she’s set for them.

_Let the battle begin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well things went extremely pear-shaped over this past week! i've moved home - my university has switched entirely to online classes, which is going to be interesting seeing as i'm in the sciences and my only elective is an english course. friends, please stay safe! remember to wash your hands correctly, and that social distancing is key to preventing the spread of the coronavirus. this has been a PSA from your local medical sciences major who did too much research on zombie viruses for a story, once upon a time  
> in fic news, we're moving into the mock battle! so far the story's been crawling at an approximate rate of one in-universe day per chapter, which would even out to over 700 chapters for me to finish the story. that simply Will Not Do, considering that i have the attention span of a small mouse. future chapters will cover larger segments of time, especially in the war phase.  
> there's a lot of fun interactions to play around with between the students, and also i think it's fun to bully Seteth with Byleth's weird pedagogy, which is why this chapter took the direction it did! there's a lot of really fun canonical friendships to explore, but then there's the whole uncharted world of "these two characters have never interacted in canon and probably never will", and i'm not about to let that slide by  
> tune in next time to see how the altered mock battle goes down!


	7. bringing a knife to a mock battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does it take longer for the hunters to become the hunted, or for armies to fall to ruin?

_2:00_

The trumpet sounds in the distance, and Edelgard breathes out. “The battle begins,” she announces, and her team (her team!) cheers. “Let’s emerge victorious.”

Her first goal, of course, is to locate Professor Eisner. She has a strange gut feeling that this won’t go so well, if only because _it’s too easy._ She’d be a fool to not realize that Professor Eisner wouldn’t throw the game by hiding herself.

The question, now, is where?

There are wooded areas across the field, as well as foothills. Edelgard sweeps her gaze across the field, only spotting the telltale blue and gold banners in the distance. No sign of Professor Eisner; perhaps she’s masquerading as a student? Does Professor Eisner even own the academy uniform? Would she wear it into battle for the sheer purpose of baffling her students?

Edelgard wouldn’t put it past her.

She gives her axe an experimental swing, feeling the way it cuts through the air. The balance has been just a little off since she changed the shaft, but after rewrapping the grip with cotton canvas and resin, it feels a lot less like it’s about to slip out of her hand. That said, it’s still better than taking an axe with a shattered shaft into battle.

Last sparring session may have gotten a little out of hand. It’s a small wonder Caspar doesn’t have a concussion, really.

“Do not split up,” she orders, “under any circumstances. There may be three fronts to this battle, but we don’t need to face them all at once. We trained together as a team, and we will _crush_ the Lions and the Deer as a team.” With that, she charges.

The first student she faces is a boy she recognizes as being in her firearms class. He’s from the Blue Lions, she thinks; she’s seen him go in and out of the Lions’ common room, carrying books and things. He’s armed with a sword and a small shield, the latter strapped to his arm in the style of Faerghus fighters. That’s cool and all. Edelgard raises her axe, and—

The world blurs and the earth beneath her feet turns to air, pushing her up above her opponent. _Get the height advantage,_ her childhood mentors always said. _You are small, so you must be bigger than them; you are fast, so you must fly. Not one of them will match up to your power, for you have the blood of the Saint in your veins._

—slips into a different Edelgard.

She knows that the girl who flies into battle and lands in the throne room are not the same. The way she shifts between the two is such: she picks up her axe and brings it down like crashing thunder. Battle is what she was made for, what she has tirelessly trained herself for since she was allowed to pick up a weapon (and long before then too, if she’s honest with herself). The confidence she finds in combat is unparalleled.

Now if only she could bring herself to control it.

Just a few blows are enough to split the boy’s shield in two, the pieces dangling from the leather arm brace by mere threads. The boy grits his teeth and whales on her with his sword, and she matches him blow for blow until she can turn around and slam the flat of her axe into his stomach. He puts his hands up, and Edelgard backs off and lets him breathe.

“Good one, your Highness,” the boy wheezes, giving her a thumbs up. “I’m… gonna head back to the healers.”

She nods, and rushes off again.

All around, she can see her classmates making an impression on their peers. Petra backhands a twirling sword into someone’s gut, tearing the fabric but not doing anything worse. Linhardt fires a spell at a student trying to sneak up on Caspar, who has lost his axe and is now grappling with two people at once. An arrow whizzes across the field, imbedding itself in someone’s shoulder, and Edelgard traces it back to Bernadetta, who already has another arrow nocked and ready to fire.

They’re doing pretty great. Edelgard is, if anything, proud of their progress.

Hubert finds her in the fray, gloves charred from all the spells he’s been casting. “We’ve clashed with the southern front of the Blue Lions, Lady Edelgard,” he reports. “The Golden Deer are still, for the most part, conglomerated farther north. We have reason to believe that they are also marching on the Blue Lions.”

“Good,” Edelgard mutters. She regrets not tying up her hair earlier; her ribbons, while precious to her, serve very little purpose when she’s trying to keep the hair out of her face. “We’ll crush them next.”

She rushes forward while he backs her up with his magic, and they move as a cohesive unit once again, steel and nether turning into a weapon of mass destruction. Dorothea dances in and out of their zone, hair flying around her with static as she commands thunder to the touch. The earth grows warm with life as Edelgard treads fire across a bloody path.

“Any sign of Professor Eisner?” she calls. “If we are to win, we need to find her and obtain her knife!”

“I have not been spotting her,” Petra shouts, throwing another student to the ground. “But the Blue Lions have the flag group over there.”

Sure enough, the Lion banner flies in the wind just ahead. A small retinue gathers at its base, seemingly uncrushable. If Edelgard just squints, she thinks she can make out some of the faces in the group: Dedue, taller than most, carrying a lance probably twice Edelgard’s height. Felix, wearing a scowl atop his uniform. Annette’s optimism replaced by a steady determination.

And of course, at the head of the group stands Dimitri, proudly baring his teeth. Like the Lions he leads, he’s armed and ready to take on her team. At the end of the day, this is just as much a battle for her house as it is for her honour—as Edelgard, as the imperial heiress, as citizen of the Adrestian Empire.

“Caspar, Linhardt, Bernadetta,” she says, knowing they’re not far behind, “protect our flag. I haven’t seen heads or tails of Claude yet, and I’m willing to say that he’s up to no good. It would not be good for morale for us to lose our flag. Hubert, Dorothea, Petra, with me.”

They step in pace with her, and Edelgard feels confident in her plan. “We’ll take down the Lions first, and then we’ll move onto the Deer,” she says. “That victory is ours today!”

The wave of blue meets her, and she folds her wings and dives in.

* * *

_2:20_

Felix knows it’s over the moment the Eagles make their advance.

He knows this because Dimitri turns, and before anyone can get a hold of him he’s already running to cross his blade with Edelgard’s. “Defend our flag,” the boar yells, completely ignoring the telltale hiss of battle spells charging the air with raw aether energy.

“Wait, your Majesty,” Annette shouts, “the mages!”

“There’s no time,” Felix tells her, and draws his sword. “Cover me!”

He feels Annette’s magic sear past him as he throws himself into the fray. The spell explodes somewhere up ahead, obscuring his vision for half a second, and when he can see again his sword hasn’t quite reached Dorothea like he’d intended but is crossed against Petra’s. She yells, and sparks skid between their swords as they wrestle the tips to the ground.

“You are not to be hurting them,” Petra snaps, and Felix finds himself being unceremoniously roundhouse-kicked in the ribs and sent sprawling into the grass. Pain shoots up his side immediately, and for a moment there’s no breath left in his lungs, but he closes his eyes and counts, _two, three, four,_ and it feels a little less unbearable.

He rolls onto his side when he can, and _ouch,_ he knows that’s going to bruise by tomorrow. There’s no Eagles or Deer in sight, and the boar has taken his own fight elsewhere; Felix can still hear his yelling from afar. He gets to his feet, plucks his sword out of the grass, and heads back to the flag team.

“Where is everyone?” he asks, running over the people still left. Dedue’s here, and that’s something—even though he’d jump off a cliff for the boar, Dedue’s decently sturdy in a battle and won’t fall to a few stray arrow or two. “Did everyone get hit?”

Dedue shakes his head. “Annette is magically dueling with Hubert,” he says. “Ashe and Mercedes are still looking for Professor Eisner. I haven’t heard from them in a while. Sylvain and Ingrid’s groups are setting up for the pincer. We’re just waiting for his Majesty’s order now.”

Felix scowls. “There’s no time for that,” he says, “the boar’s been settling a grudge, and I don’t think he’s going to stop anytime soon. I’ll go help with the pincer. We’ll catch them off guard.”

He doesn’t bother waiting for a response, and takes off into the stream of fleeting bodies.

The skirmishes he gets along the way while seeking out that familiar flash of bright orange hair don’t keep him long, but they do slow him down significantly. By the time he finally throws the other guy to the ground with a clatter, his last lead has once again disappeared, and he’s back to square one looking for either end of their pincer operation.

Ingrid is fine on her own, he knows. He may not talk to her much anymore, but he knows Ingrid pushes herself harder than the rest of them combined and that she of all people won’t fail. Sylvain, on the other hand, has battlefield talent but tends to leave his side open, and really needs to keep his team around him if he’s to keep himself alive.

They’re both plenty capable fighters, though Felix would never tell that to their faces.

He finally finds Ingrid’s group among the fighters, still inching along the sides. “We need to carry it out, now,” he shouts. Ingrid gives him a furious glare. “The boar’s kind of preoccupied right now!”

“Not now, we haven’t even finished setting up!” Ingrid yells back. “And Sylvain’s group is still stuck wading through the Deer on the far side!”

Felix swears loudly and starts to run. No one tries to catch up; as far as his peers go, he’s pretty sure only Petra can match him pace for pace. A arrow goes whizzing by, sinking into the ground nearby with a _twang._ He sidesteps it and keeps moving.

Seiros above, they are an absolute _mess._ There’s so much happening and no one to direct it.

And yet, as he watches, it looks like the Lions are still somewhat holding together. Many of them have formed smaller groups, defending each other’s backs while the flanking pincer groups start to press in from either side. The defending Eagles, who they’ve collided with, are much less organized as they start to fall back in on themselves.

 _Good,_ Felix thinks. _Let them fall to chaos._

He finally meets a Deer student in the fray, and neatly matches his blows. Each one stings his arms, though—his opponent is physically a lot stronger than him, and Felix has to grit his teeth and brace himself for each parry. He yells, and his crest of Fraldarius burns like a blinding sun overhead as he grips his sword in both hands, whirls around and slams the blade into his opponent’s sword arm. It leaves a gash across his arm the size of Felix’s palm, and he runs before the other guy can even raise his arms up for mercy.

“Seiros,” he mutters, finally finding familiar faces in the chaos. Sylvain has a new cut on his chin shaped like the crescent of an axe. When Felix joins him, he’s uncorking a vulnerary potion and sipping a few precious drops like they’re godly ambrosia—an old Faerghus trick to stave off exhaustion in battle. “Ingrid said you were engaging with the Deer.”

Sylvain smiles grimly. “We did,” he says, “for, like, five minutes. I think they retreated.”

“Retreated? Back to their base?” Felix scowls. “Do you mean to tell me that there’s _no_ Deer in the pincer?”

“Hey, man, I’m just calling it as I saw it.”

And that’s when the horn in the distance blares, and Felix could have _sworn_ he’s heard Claude mess around with this exact instrument before, just yesterday. “Call off the pincer,” he says, and across the field he makes eye contact with a now stunned Ingrid. “Call off the pincer! We need to regroup!”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll exhaust ourselves fighting the Eagles like this,” Felix yells, “and _by Seiros_ if the boar doesn’t stop and read the field, I’ll stop him myself!”

* * *

_2:43_

If there’s anything that Hilda has to bemoan, it’s her shirt.

She was doing _so well_ keeping it clean and unstained, a remarkable feat for something made of clean white cotton. It was luck that kept her out of most fights, and in the two she did have (with a few girls from the Blue Lions) it was almost easy to just flick the weapons out of their hands and move on.

But then she snuck up on the Eagles’ flag, and while she managed to avoid Linhardt’s spells (though that Nosferatu spell came pretty close to singeing her hair) she couldn’t avoid Caspar. She regrets not changing the grip on her axe last night—it had slipped in her grasp, and she couldn’t block the swing in time before it hit her in the shoulder.

She’s okay, of course, and her shoulder hurts like hell, but that’s nothing a few drops of vulnerary potion dribbled into the wound can’t solve. What really hurts is the fact that her perfectly good shirt, _a white cotton shirt,_ now has a giant gaping bloody gap in it. She can get Mercedes to fix the gap after the exercise, but blood? That’s not coming out, even if Hilda uses the coldest water and the strongest soap to wash it.

So she’s a little sulky about her shirt as she returns to base after calling for mercy. Marianne, goddess bless her, found her and patched her shoulder up with a single touch, leaving her feeling all warm and fuzzy from the tips of her fingers to the top of her head. She’s still riding on the tingly high when she goes to join Claude and Lorenz under their flag.

“The Lions smartened up,” Claude tells her, sounding a little disappointed as he swings his bow errantly. “Quite a shame, if you ask me. We could have taken them out easily.”

“They’re a lot sturdier than that,” Lorenz says crossly. Hilda notes (with considerable amusement) the rumpled state of his hair, and figures he’s gotten in more skirmishes than he cares to admit. “We mustn’t underestimate their strength.”

“And now we’ve lost the element of surprise,” Claude sighs. “That’s alright. We still have them surrounded for the most part.” He turns. “Sound the horn again!”

The student with the horn nods, and Hilda blocks her ears before the signal blares out. They’ve all prepared for this: with the Eagles and Lions fighting each other, they can storm in and incapacitate them just enough to take the win. The risk of spreading themselves too thin exists, but they’ve prepared for that by grouping up into smaller teams, which should be enough to cover anything the Eagles and the Lions have prepared.

But before the horn can sound, something else echoes in the distance.

“What was that?” Lorenz asks, voice reduced to a whisper. “Was that a _trumpet?”_

“It sounded like it,” Claude mutters, nocking an arrow. “Stay alert. We don’t know what’s coming.”

The next moment, they’re all screaming and running as lightning arcs through the air and crackles in Professor von Essar’s hands. “Was that _supposed_ to happen?” Hilda yelps, nearly dropping her axe as a spark skips across her hands painfully.

“I have no bloody clue!” Claude yells back. He whirls around, fires his arrow, and keeps running. The lightning stops for half a second before it starts to lick at their heels again. “Not gonna lie, I did _not_ account for this in our plans!”

“This wasn’t in the mission assignment!”

“Yes it was, she mentioned that there were going to be distracting factors!” Hilda shouts. “Oh, Seiros, why didn’t I just stay in my room?”

The worst part is that it doesn’t seem like Professor Eisner held back, nor does it seem like Professor von Essar is the only one terrorizing the battlefield. The perfect storm of the Eagles’ charging headfirst and the Lions’ attempted pincer attack, plus the Deer encircling them from all sides, gave the perfect opportunity for the instructors and staff to launch their own attack. Over the ridge, Hilda can see Professor Casagranda chasing down Sylvain and Felix with her magic while Catherine forces Dorothea and Petra back.

“Goddess above, are all the faculty staff here?” Lorenz asks, brandishing his spear as students continue to run in every which direction. _“Is that Archbishop Rhea?!”_

Sure enough, the Archbishop herself is on the battlefield, commanding chaos as she cuts down students with a gleaming sword. She looks serene, as if she isn’t the eye of a hurricane of disaster. Hilda stares for a moment too long and gets zapped with the vestigial tips of Professor von Essar’s magic for it.

“Where in all hell is Claude?” Lorenz suddenly snaps, and Hilda looks around to find her friend missing. “Dammit! He’s gone running off again, and he’ll get himself—”

“Look, I don’t care what your problem is with him but he’s smart enough to not get himself killed.” Hilda raises her axe. “Here’s an idea. I’ll distract Professor von Essar. You take him down from behind.”

Lorenz groans, but he tightens his grip on his lance and trains his glare at the instructor. “Alright,” he says, “we’ll do just that, then.”

And as she charges with no intention of holding back, Hilda thinks she can forget the ache in her shoulder for a while.

* * *

_2:50_

From the sidelines, Seteth watches and sighs.

Is this absolutely ridiculous? Yes, without a doubt. In all his years at the monastery, he’s never seen anything so preposterous. Pitting the students against each other is one thing—competition thrives at the very heart of the Officers Academy. Sending the _teachers_ after them is a whole other thing.

And yet, the more he looks at it, the less stupid it gets. Simulating real battle conditions? Dealing with seemingly undefeatable foes? Pitting the houses against each other like real countries for what is effectively a human hostage? Mimicking real conditions while warning the young leaders of the houses against bringing about real war? It’s brilliant! Why, it’s exactly the kind of thing that _should_ be taught at the Officers Academy, things that belong in a school that prides itself on producing the leaders of the continent!

If it weren’t for the fact that Byleth Eisner came up with it, Seteth thinks he would actually keep the modified mock battle for future years.

He doesn’t trust the new professor, and it’s no secret to anyone in the faculty (or the students, for that matter). He hears giggling in the hallways of “not a word of this to Seteth” and something about paint, and he just _knows_ that Professor Eisner has been going about doing some very un-professorly things behind his back.

At least he figures he can trust her to accompany Flayn to the market on weekends. Ridiculous teaching style otherwise, she swings a mean sword.

Is she really a good instructor, though? He hasn’t seen heads or tails of her since she debriefed the rest of the faculty on their roles in the mock battle this morning. She’s probably hiding somewhere in the field, waiting for a student to find her so she can take them down swiftly. It worries Seteth that she’s willing to take the backseat while the students (and the rest of the faculty) duel it out.

But then he hears the signal for the instructors, and the screams begin, and he watches.

“This is where the real fun begins,” Jeralt comments, and Seteth glares at him. He’s got a canvas bag of popcorn from the mess hall and is rapidly munching through it. He offers it to Seteth as an olive branch of sorts.

“The fact that you find this fun alarms me.” Seteth, for his part, doesn’t cave. He’s never been fond of either of the Eisners—the ones still living, anyhow—or of popcorn. “Does watching the students run themselves into the ground amuse you?”

Jeralt grins with all his teeth. “Nah. But watching my kid beat them up does.”

He’s proud of his daughter for being a fighter, just as Seteth is proud of Flayn for being a healer. She’s among the healers in the tents now, on a strict half-hour rotation lest she wear herself out. The steady stream of “defeated” students moving in and out of the healer tents tells him she won’t be following her schedule.

As Seteth watches, the battlefield churns with chaos. While he’s not as easily amused as Jeralt is, he has to concede that watching a sober Manuela steamroll the students with her magic is interesting. Catherine is chasing down a group of terrified mages while Alois wreaks havoc on horseback and Shamir showers them in arrows. There’s a whole circle of empty space around Jeritza as students avoid him like the plague.

… Okay, so maybe it is a little bit entertaining to watch.

“You don’t think this was a bad idea?”

“It was Byleth’s idea,” Jeralt says. “Kid’s got the brains to make it work. She wrangles the students, they don’t give her grief, and if you’ll pardon my language, they’re all scared shitless of her. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, but that’s as far as I can lead her. She’s got to decide her own path after this.”

“Hmmm.”

Jeralt, he decides, is a fool, but he makes some good points about parenting. It wasn’t like he had anyone help him raise Byleth—Seteth remembers the funeral in vivid detail, remembers how early winter came that year and how wind and snow buried the fresh grave in an instant. Or perhaps not; the memory overlaps with the waves lapping at his boots, at the foot of a wholly different grave altogether.

Byleth Eisner might be just as much of a fool as her father, but he has to concede that she knows what she’s doing. It’s like the girl was born to teach, and moreover it’s like she was born to teach _teens,_ the most fickle of children. She might be about as blank as a sheet of paper, but Byleth has the energy and the good humour to do the impossible.

(It’s just hard to look at her and not see her mother’s smile.)

“How long do you think she can keep hiding?” he asks, and Jeralt scoffs. “You raised her, you tell me.”

“Honestly? I’m surprised she hasn’t given up and come out of hiding herself already.” Jeralt throws another piece of popcorn directly upwards, and leans forwards to messily catch it in his mouth. “Eh, we’ll see when she leaves. The panic will get louder when she does.”

“Duly noted.”

* * *

_3:01_

Claude is running out of arrows.

He managed to snag a few from the ground, but most of them have bent tips. All the better, in his opinion—it’ll reduce his chances of accidentally killing someone or doing permanent damage, and as long as the fletchings are still intact, it'll make a decent shot.

The problem now is to win the game. The chaos of the instructors attacking has died down somewhat, but Professor Eisner still remains mysteriously missing. Claude has accounted for all of his Deer and can safely conclude that Professor Eisner isn't masquerading as one of them. He ducks from a swinging sword, and narrowly misses an arrow flying for his face as he runs across the battlefield.

Claude has a plan. Not a scheme this time. A plan.

Lysithea joins him as he runs, and he's about to make a joke about her having to scamper to catch up but decides against it at the last moment. "We're not going to hold out like this!" she yells, firing an errant spell at an approaching group of Blue Lions. "If we don't wear each other out, then the teachers will wear us out!"

"Yeah, that's what I'm about to deal with," he shouts back. "Have you seen either of their Highnesses around?"

"Uh, I think Edelgard was back that way!"

He turns without another word in the direction she points in. The crossfire of a million fighting students seem to pause for an instant as he curves away from crossed swords and leaps over swooping lances. Not a moment later, the student body scatters in terror as Professor von Hrym crashes through their ranks, parting the masses with sheer size and speed. His masked gaze lands on Claude, who just swears loudly and rolls aside before he can get trampled by horse and rider.

When he gets to his feet, there is an axe pointed at his chest. "You know better than to venture into Eagle territory alone," Edelgard says coldly. "What do you aim to achieve?"

"Who said I was alone?" he says, grabbing an arrow from his quiver. Edelgard lurches, but he moves aside just as fast, aiming it at Dimitri as he approaches. "Besides, we're not exactly in Eagle territory. I think this is a middle ground, really."

"And there's much to discuss," Dimitri says, completing the triangle with the tip of his lance resting just below Edelgard's chin. She remains stalwart and glares back at him. "I'm sure both of you have realized how this battle has been turned against us. We have no means to win at this rate, tricks or otherwise."

"I'm offended that you think my perfectly good battle plan was a trick," Claude says, "but you're right. We can't take down the teachers on our own, and we need to find Professor Eisner and get that knife in half an hour or less. We're running out of time, and at this rate, we're all going to lose."

The thought hangs in the balance for a frozen second, between three kids who never learned how to not win, and they all drop their weapons and sigh in some sort of broken relief. "There must be something in the rules that allows us to win," Edelgard says, "a certain condition, a loophole, something we can safely exploit without truly exploiting."

"And if so, then which house would win?" Dimitri asks. "Is there a page of the rules missing? Did we simply just not get the whole story?"

"I doubt we ever will," Edelgard mutters.

The notice on the bulletin board flashes through Claude's mind again. "The first rule was that we wouldn't sabotage each other before the mission," he recalls, "but there's no rule that says we can't collaborate with each other."

Instantly, the other two look like they've had to swallow frogs. "Collaborate," Dimitri says, looking like he'd rather be swimming in the Bay of Sreng than fighting here. "Just us, or our three houses as well?"

"Well, we can't have one leader take the glory when all three fight together, so I'd suppose our houses would work together too."

"It's not against the rules," Edelgard murmurs. She sounds all at once anxious and relieved, like some weight on her shoulders has just been exchanged for something just as bad. "It's not against the rules. We can collaborate." Her bitter expression fades, and the confidence that undoubtedly makes her Edelgard returns. "Let's do it. How shall we alert our fellow students?"

Claude scratches the back of his head. "Eh, I have a horn, but we don't exactly have a universal signal to cast out, do we."

"Cast out," Dimitri echoes, eyebrows rising, "like a spell? Is there anyone in your houses who can cast a spell to amplify their voices in any way? I'm sure I can ask Annette, but I don't know if she'll have one for certain."

"Dorothea definitely has a spell for that purpose, but the instructors will be able to hear the message too," Edelgard says. "Do we want to put a cone of silence on them?"

"That doesn't matter as much. We'll still have the element of surprise on our side."

"Then let's do it." Edelgard looks around the battlefield, eyes sharp like an eagle. "We can find her immediately after this and have her amplify our message. Then it will be significantly easier to face the instructors, since we're not also fighting each other."

Claude puts his hand down between the three of them. "We have quite the task ahead of us, don't we."

The other two stare at him before they pile their hands on his as well. "I said I would lead my house to victory," Edelgard says. "It will be most interesting to expand that into a three-way victory."

"And yet three victors is better than none," Dimitri comments. "We can turn this around."

Claude grins. "Now that's the spirit," he says, clapping them both over the shoulder. Their smiles, however tired, are still strong. "Let's make this one for the history books."

* * *

_3:07_

It shouldn’t be possible for just a few people to cause so much chaos among so many students, but Ingrid can literally count off all the faculty members involved between her two hands.

There’s Professor von Essar, standing at the epicentre of a storm of ashes. Professor Casagranda is on the far side engaging with a few of the Deer. Professor von Hrym and Alois are causing mass panic on horseback. The ground shakes every time Gilbert swings his axe. Catherine is practically crackling with energy as she swings Thunderbrand mercilessly. Shamir looses her bow and rolls away before anyone can touch her.

The only teacher who hasn’t shown themselves yet, naturally, is Professor Eisner. She’s hasn’t been spotted since her last-minute office hours yesterday, and Ingrid is strongly starting to suspect she is in possession of at least one set of the student uniform. There’s no other way she could sneak around so well. Dimitri has finally come to his senses and is coordinating efforts to track her down, but not before taking a few hits himself.

What’s the point in beating the other houses if none of them can find Professor Eisner, anyways? Capture the flag gets boring after the flag goes missing, after all. Ingrid sorely wishes she could get a better view of the battlefield, preferably from above. To be riding on a pegasus, tearing through the skies with lance in hand, is there anything more interesting?

Then an arrow whizzes past her, and she’s promptly yanked from her daydream back onto the battlefield. From a hundred yards out, Shamir nocks another arrow, and Ingrid dives for the ground before she can get hit. The second arrow thuds into the ground barely a metre away from her head. She rolls to her feet and runs, only daring to look back once. Annette isn’t far off, ducking from sword blows and getting swift blasts of magic in—

Ingrid hits something solid and immediately feels herself crumple to the ground. “Oh, Seiros,” she mutters, turning around. She’s collided into Leonie, who is clearly also sore and sprawled out in the dust like her.

Right. Leonie is a Golden Deer.

“Oh,” Ingrid says intelligently.

The sound of a horse neighing catches her attention, and it’s only a split second decision that makes her yell out and tackle Leonie to the ground as Alois comes riding up and nearly plows into them both. They get to their feet as soon as they can, and Ingrid can tell that the other girl has the exact same thought as her:

_We’re supposed to be enemies._

“I can’t fight both of you at once,” Leonie says. “And neither of us are going to be able to take on _him_ on our own.”

The air changes. It’s like the calm before the storm, the moment of silence before the lightning strikes. And yet, even as Ingrid braces herself, the spell never hits. Instead, it seems to be enveloping the entire battlefield, and what’s more, the magical signature feels familiar.

 _“Attention,”_ Edelgard says, into what must be an amplification spell, _“these are your house leaders speaking. We have a very important announcement.”_

 _“It has come to our attention that there is nothing in the rules saying that the three houses cannot collaborate,”_ Dimitri continues, sounding less and less sure of himself by the second. _“As such, our tactics have somewhat changed.”_

 _“Team up with your fellow students,”_ Claude says. _“We can bring down the instructors, and then we’ll find Professor Eisner. It’s down to the final twenty minutes, everyone. We can all be winners, or we can all lose. Let’s win it for all of us!”_

Ingrid can _feel_ her jaw drop. She turns to look at Leonie, who looks just as stunned. “We can… work together,” she manages.

Leonie nods, gripping her sword tighter.

After that, it’s easier. They charge Alois together, yelling in unison. Ingrid crosses her spear with Alois’s as Leonie darts in and out, aggravating the horse. Every time one of them falls out of pace, the other leans in and blocks. It’s almost fun to duck and run from the bucking hooves and gnashing teeth and swinging spear all at once. The regular blocks and parries repeating return, and Ingrid grins with confidence and lunges with her spear and _twists—_

Alois falls off his horse with a grunt, and Ingrid swings and bats his spear out of his hand as Leonie firmly plants a foot on his stomach and points her sword at his sternum. “Yield,” she yells.

“I yield, I yield,” Alois wheezes. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should be getting back to—”

“Hold on.” Ingrid relaxes and brings her spear down (blades to the ground, for safety reasons of course) as she joins Leonie. “You’re the first faculty member we’ve managed to capture. Where’s Professor Eisner?”

And Alois, in true Alois form, starts to laugh. “Oh, you’ll never find her,” he guffaws, as if it’s supposed to be reassuring in some way. “She’s—she’s too—” He breaks into laughter again, and his words turn incoherent.

“She’s what?” Ingrid snaps, whirling her spear around. Even with two blades pointed at him, Alois is still laughing, and Ingrid has half a mind to smack him over the chest with her spearhead when he manages to choke out a few words:

“She’s too far up for you to catch!”

And as he devolves into maniacal giggling again, Ingrid can only really exchange a look of confusion with Leonie and find solace in the fact that neither of them have _any_ idea what’s going on.

* * *

_3:19_

Byleth’s legs started cramping an hour ago.

This is fine.

She can hold out.

It’s getting a bit tiring to keep turning around in the tree, though. No one has approached her yet, and it’s starting to get boring. She’s been stuck in this tree for _two hours,_ and if no one comes to find her within the next minute, she’s going to leave this damn tree and see what happens for herself.

Through the tree cover, she peers out, scanning her surroundings. The students caught the loophole in her ruleset about five minutes ago, and they’ve been gloriously teaming up to take out the instructors since. Lysithea blasted Catherine with a Miasma spell hard enough to send her sprawling back several metres in the dust. Linhardt froze Rhea with a _glorious_ hex, leaving her open for Ferdinand and Caspar to take her down.

And now, with Claude aiming an arrow directly at her face from fifteen metres out, Byleth gets the faint feeling she’s about to get loopholed too.

She grabs her sword and jumps, the arrow whistling over her feet as she does a spectacular backflip out of the tree and practically lands on all fours. Almost instinctively, she raises her sword, and just manages to parry a hit from Edelgard as she’s rising to her feet.

“So you _did_ plant clues,” Edelgard says, “with the other instructors. It was interesting to solve your puzzle, my teacher.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Byleth replies, as her sword catches against Edelgard’s axe and the friction sends a shower of sparks flying down the length of the blade. She forces herself into pushing Edelgard away, and whirls around in time to cut down an arrow from Claude and dodge Edelgard’s next swing in the same fluid motion. _Behind you,_ Sothis whispers, and she just manages to catch Dimitri’s lance against her sword.

They’re giving her a run for her money, for sure, but she can go harder. She yells, pushing forward until the hilt of her sword digs into Dimitri’s chest, and as he backs away she _twists_ downwards and pushes him with her, driving the tip of his lance deep into the ground. His eyes go wide, and she backs away just enough to whack him with the flat of her sword hard enough to send him sprawling.

“Who’s next?” she barks. Edelgard and Claude stand at a distance, weapons at the ready. “I will cut you down without hesitation. Do not forget that.”

Claude narrows his eyes, but doesn’t raise his bow as they begin to circle each other like hyenas. “I don’t get it,” he says. “You went through all that effort to set up an elaborate game, turned us against each other, and then turned the game against us and told us we could work together? Why?”

“No one is innocent in war,” Byleth says. “Not me, not you, not anyone. I want you to feel remorse from fighting your classmates. I want you to face them in class tomorrow knowing that you’ve hurt them. I want you to understand that _war isn’t worth it.”_

“Fódlan has been embroiled in war for hundreds of years,” Edelgard says defiantly.

“Then _change_ it,” Byleth says. “You three are the dawn of Fódlan. Don’t commit your ancestors’ sins. Unite together against a common enemy. You don’t have to hurt each other to boost yourselves up.”

“Alright, duly noted, Teach,” Claude says. “But we’re still gonna win this mock battle, y’know.”

He fires, and Byleth leaps aside to avoid the arrow, and that is precisely when Dimitri rips his lance out of the ground with a mighty shout and swings it at the back of her legs, sweeping her feet out from beneath her. She falls flat on her back, and when the pain stops shooting through her shoulders and she opens her eyes, there are three weapons aimed at her chest.

Claude grins, holding up a familiar blade cloaked in cornflower blue. “Surprise,” he says, and the other two laugh.

The trumpet call that signals the end of the exercise blares across the battlefield, and Byleth reaches up and is hoisted to her feet by her three students. It only takes a moment longer for her to find her sword and dust herself off. “Hear ye, hear ye!” she yells. She can’t even keep the smile off her face.

“I declare you _all_ winners of the mock battle!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy april, dear friends! for many this means finals. for me it means camp nanowrimo, and also finals. good luck to everyone with finals in these troubling times; i will most certainly be logging my english take-home exam into my word count.  
> i love the classroom shenanigans, don't get me wrong, but i've missed writing action scenes. my introduction to fanfiction was in a very small fandom where action is a staple, and i've learned a lot about weaponry and fighting since i first started writing. three houses feels like a sandbox in that respect, in that there's a lot more discipline and focus to the fighting and a lot of room to play with when it comes to how magic works. i'm really excited to push that to the limits!  
> congrats to you folks who accurately predicted the twist of the chapter! i couldn't let one house win over another, not when Byleth has been trying so hard to get them to work together for so long. also i thought it would be really funny to just sic the teachers on the students and see how they react  
> hoping all of you are happy, healthy and safe at home!


	8. all is fair in school and war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of the mock battle, Byleth teaches some lessons, and learns a few herself.

They all sit together at one long table after the mock battle, the generals and house leaders. Linhardt is convinced to stay awake a little longer, and Hilda has the blood removed from her shirt with a little magic from Annette, and Caspar and Lorenz recount progressively more and more ridiculous stories of beating back the instructors. Several jokes are made congratulating Ferdinand of the victory made on his birthday, which he takes gracefully. Edelgard emerges from her room last, tailed by Hubert, and even as she’s trying to retreat to her lonely corner Dorothea and Petra frogmarch her into the crowd to join them.

It’s befitting a victory like theirs. All around, the mess hall is filled with students mingling beyond their houses, introducing their friends to each other, laughing and joking. The three house leaders find themselves at the epicentre of a decisive victory and recount their final standoff against their enigmatic combat professor from all angles. No one is left frowning. The world is alight with good food and good cheer, and Garreg Mach laughs long into the night.

Five o’clock becomes six, and by eight the mess hall staff have decided to call it a night, and even then they linger. All the other students have gone back to rest for the night, to nurse their wounds and sleep off the exhaustion. The merriment quiets itself but does not fade, and Professor Eisner’s words still echo in each of their minds:

_“I declare you all winners of the mock battle!”_

Edelgard brings in tea from her room while Dedue brings biscotti, and even though they’re not supposed to they light one of the ovens to reheat the food. The smell of butter and raisins and bittersweet bergamot drifts into the chatter, and although there are many of them there is no shortage of camaraderie and honest-to-goodness friendship.

“And so when she fell, I managed to grab the knife off her belt,” Claude says gleefully. “She didn’t even realize until I held it up in front of her again!”

They all burst into raucous laughter again, as Dimitri leans back in his seat with a satisfied grin and Edelgard takes a sip of her tea. The friend groups that formed soon after their first lesson together were great and all, but seeing everyone so close together like this is just amazing.

It’s just as Professor Eisner said: they united against a common enemy, and things turned out okay. No one has been badly hurt, which is apparently a first for the mock battles of years past—last year, a student ended up being so terribly injured that they had to drop out. This year’s mock battle has only served to bring them all closer together.

They’ve all got scars from the experience. Edelgard’s arms are littered in little bruises; Dimitri has a larger one across his chest. Claude’s fingers are red and sore from gripping his bow.

But seeing Professor Eisner smile like that?

They don’t even need words to agree that it was absolutely worth it.

* * *

On Thursday morning, Byleth is late to class.

She wakes up at what she presumes must be seven o’clock, which is alright. It’s only after giving the cats several scritches that she squints harder at the clock and realizes it’s past eight, and she hasn’t washed up or gotten breakfast and she needs to get her wounds redressed and her tush is still very, very sore from falling. She has less than an hour to do all of that, and she can only do about half of it because _her tush is still very, very sore_ and she can’t move nearly as fast.

Dammit.

She ends up managing to wash up and redresses her wounds as quickly as possible. For her sore back, she grabs her pillow and sticks it under her arm, and for breakfast, she procures a ham sandwich from the dining hall.

She then proceeds to march through the hallways with the swift rhythm of a soldier to get to class. The students ahead of her part in sheer terror, either because she looks like she’s about to kill someone or because of the awful exercise she put them all through yesterday.

It’s a small wonder she manages to make it to class on time.

“Good morning,” she says to her assembled class. “I see my house leaders and my generals are all present.”

Twenty-four faces beam back at her, in varying degrees of fear, confidence and joy. She drops her pillow on the desk at the front of the room, takes a bite of her sandwich, and sits down. Mentally, she runs through the attendance as she eats her sandwich, and the class stares at her in baffled silence. Everyone’s here—physically, at least. Linhardt and Mercedes and Marianne look like they’re on the verge of falling unconscious any moment.

“Before we start class proper,” she finally says, “does anyone have anything to say about the mock battle? Any criticism you want to make, positive or negative? Yes, Mr. von Aegir.”

“I found it quite interesting,” Ferdinand says, “but I am now quite wary of what future missions will look like. I believe we didn’t discover the loophole in the rules until very close to the end of the exercise, which is in part on us, but it was certainly discouraging to realize we had been trying to break each other down when we could have been fighting together all along.”

Byleth dips her head. “Duly noted. I apologize for not posting the full ruleset earlier and giving you the full day to prepare; I will keep that in mind for next time. Miss Goneril?”

Hilda grins at her. “I thought it was fun, to be honest!” she chirps. “Even though it was _sooooo_ tiring and really weird to have to fight the other professors… I mean, I wouldn’t mind learning this way.”

“I understand. I’ll consider that when making future missions.”

No one else seems to have any other suggestions, so she turns around, pulls the chalk from her pocket, and begins to write on the board. “As you all must know by now, I was watching everything,” she says, drawing her chart of three columns and three rows. “I have a lot of my own commentary to offer, but for now, I want to hear what you have to say for yourselves.”

Across the top, she writes the house names in slanted script. Down the side, she puts _things done well_ and _not so hot_ as the headings for the first two rows. “We can go one house at a time. Who wants to volunteer first?”

As expected of students, no one moves. _They’re getting good at avoiding eye contact,_ Byleth thinks mournfully. “Alright, then we’ll start with…” she squints at the board. “The Black Eagles. No, stop groaning, it’s not a death sentence, I’m not going to bite. Does anyone have anything to share about how the Black Eagles fought?”

Lysithea’s hand shoots up, and even as Byleth is calling on her, she speaks with eyes wide open. “They were fast,” she says, in a quiet sort of awe, _“really_ fast.”

Byleth nods. “The Eagles were in fact very, very fast,” she says, “which highly complements the Adrestian fighting style. Could someone give some elaboration on that? Miss von Hresvelg?”

Edelgard lines up her papers and sets them down. Byleth notes with considerable amusement that she has the chart on the board copied out meticulously, and is filling it in as they go. “The Adrestian fighting style emphasizes three things: speed, efficiency, and accuracy. To strike faster than your opponent, to subdue them with only a few blows, and to do so without fear of prolonging their suffering—that is the Adrestian way.”

“Poetic,” Sylvain mutters under his breath.

“I also noticed,” Byleth says, writing _speed, efficiency, accuracy_ on the board, “that there was some excellent coordination of students with melee weapons and those with ranged weapons. In particular, I’d like to call attention to Miss von Varley’s admirable sniping from the back lines. I found that the accuracy of your shots was on par with those of Imperial soldiers.”

Bernadetta shrinks in her seat with a quiet _meep_ as everyone turns to her. “Alright, I’m going to teach you all something,” Byleth decides. “Instead of staring down anyone I call on and making them feel weird, we’re going to thump our desks three times in unison as a demonstration of respect.” She demonstrates once, with a few confused students joining in halfway through. “Alright, everyone ready? Three thumps.”

The class thumps along with her. Bernadetta shrinks slightly less.

“Continuing on,” Byleth says, “the Eagles clearly put a lot of thought into planning and thinking about your matchups. The arsenal of different magic types that your mages carried impressed me greatly.” A few of the Eagles start to smirk, knowing fully well what she’s about to talk about. “Mr. von Hevring, would you care to explain the nature of the freeze hex that you cast on the Archbishop?”

Linhardt is barely awake, and it takes a few nudges from Caspar to remind him that he’s been asked a question. Byleth can’t blame him—healing takes a lot out of the healer, after all. “Petra found it in a book from the Valla Cycle,” he says. “It was purportedly a hex favoured by Elise of Nohr. There wasn’t a complete incantation in the book, but I reverse-engineered it.”

Byleth nods approvingly, and thumps on the desk. The other students join her. “I daresay it threw the entire battle in your favour in an instant. I saw how swift your collectively takedown of Archbishop Rhea was afterwards. Very well done, Eagles.” She finishes writing in that block and moves down to the next one. “Alright, is there anything you could have improved in? Yes, Miss Galatea?”

“It seemed that because everyone was moving so quickly, there was very little room for communication and coordination,” Ingrid points out. A few of the Eagles nod in grim acknowledgement, knowing fully well that it’s more than enough to get them killed in a real battle. Briefly, Byleth wonders how many “real battles” her students have been in. “Everyone felt very reliant on a single command centre, and once that was lost, the Eagles lost their focus.”

“Precisely.” Byleth turns to the board and writes, in massive letters, _COORDINATION._ “There are typically two ways to go about this: either you have a commander in the centre who directs everything, or a plan that gives each unit a specific role. While the Eagles played their cards very well, the lack of previous communication in terms of in-battle communication was a cause of concern. Anything else?”

The students don’t seem to have much more to say, and really they’ve covered all the bases that Byleth herself wants to cover, so she moves on. “Blue Lions. What did they do well?”

Claude raises his hand, and begins to talk before she can even call on him. “From an outsider perspective, they did a really good job of adapting to the situation,” he says. “They reacted really quickly when we encircled them, and again when the teachers hit.”

“Absolutely. Being quick on your feet to adapt is incredibly important.” She puts _adaptability_ on the board, and puts _flexibility_ as a corollary underneath. “I also want to bring to attention how flexible your battle tactics were, in one-on-one circumstances. Miss Galatea in particular did a spectacular takedown of Alois, which I got to witness from not too far away.”

Ingrid flushes when the class thumps on their desks, and even more when Dorothea wolf-whistles at her. “I also believe the Blue Lions were the least injured house overall,” Byleth continues. “I don’t think any of the generals turned in for injuries. Even though I knew of your pincer attack plan, it was intriguing to see how your method of attack changed to match the needs of the group.”

As she’s turning back to the board, she recalls the formation of the pincer, how they pushed forward first before splitting like a ripped seam into two groups. “Would anyone like to share the plan for your pincer attack? Someone who hasn’t spoken yet, let’s get some participation... Mr. Fraldarius.”

Felix scowls, but sits up a bit straighter. “We tapped into a Jugdrali battle manual from the library. The idea was to not split until the last moment so we could work quickly and not get overrun.”

“And why did you choose to call it off?”

“Because we would’ve lost.” 

He leaves it there, and Sylvain takes his place in explaining. “We would have only caught the Eagles in the pincer,” he says, “and we would have worn each other out while the Deer picked the rest of us off.”

Byleth nods. “In the long run, yes, you’ve made an excellent analysis,” she says. “We’ll talk about the Deer’s strategy shortly. In the meantime, let’s talk about the downsides of the pincer, and calling it off.” She puts _mobility_ under things to improve, and follows it with _space management._ “In most one-on-one scenarios, this does not apply, but the pincer limited how any of you could move because you were moving in giant clumps. Those towards the outside of the pincer got the worst of the beating, while those on the inside could barely even swing their swords.”

Moving aside to the adjacent blackboard, she draws a series of circles. “We can model these as students,” she says, putting dotted circles around the original ones. “Each of you has a radius of where you can reach. The only one who should be within that radius is your opponent. Take care not to catch your own allies in that radius,” she stresses, tapping a pair of heavily overlapping circles. “Keep in mind that all of you are moving in battle, and that you won’t be stationary. Leave space for your allies to move.”

She erases it loosely, and draws a much larger diagram. “The pincer attack you chose,” she says, turning to the Lions, “was it from the tactics manual of the White Knights of Belhalla?”

They look stunned. Byleth takes their silence and runs off with it. “Time for a history lesson,” she says, turning back to her blackboard. Across the top of her pincer diagram, she writes _Belhalla, Grannvale_ in giant letters. “The Belhalla Military Academy serviced not only the White Knights, but many great leaders of neighbouring nations. During the early days of the Holy Wars, Sigurd of Chalphy, Eldigan of Nordion and Quan of Leonster were actually classmates at Belhalla.

“I’ve read the manual you used, and to call it a pincer attack would be a mistranslation.” She adds the final touch to her diagram, and steps aside. “From what I observed, you maintained the flag group at front and centre to meet the incoming Eagles. Nowadays, we call that a flanking maneuver. However, as you probably realized, your centre group was a lot less stable due to its reduced size. Given the right circumstances, though, encirclement of the enemy can force them into tighter quarters, and drastically increase your chances of victory.” She looks back to the class, where Lysithea has her hand raised meekly. “Miss von Ordelia?”

“Professor Eisner, you should honestly teach us more history and historical tactics.”

Byleth looks back over her diagram. “Huh,” she says, “maybe I should.”

Some of the girls giggle in the back, but the class quiets back down while she erases her diagram. “Now for the Golden Deer,” she says, “I think it’s most fitting if you explain your thought process first, given that even I couldn’t solve your puzzle of a plan until halfway through.”

A few of the Deer share muted laughter, and everyone turns to (who else?) Claude. He doesn’t back down from the challenge. “We were going to kite the Eagles and the Lions against each other, temporarily retreat in the chaos, have them beat each other up and then strike while they were both weakened.” He shrugs. “It would have gone okay if we hadn’t gotten interrupted by Professor von Essar blasting us with lightning, too.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him to amp it up next time.” She turns around to draw her explanatory diagram on the board, taking only a quick glance back to see whose hands are still up. “Miss von Martritz? Something to share?”

Mercedes looks positively on the edge of passing out, but she’s still got a smile when she speaks up. “We were caught off guard many times because the Deer used the surrounding hills and bushes to their advantage.”

“Environmental advantage. I like that.” Byleth moves back to the chart for a moment to scribble it down. “I’m much aware that the strategy that the Deer took involved mostly direction rather than synchronicity. To coordinate so many people with such differing fighting styles, without need of consolidating into a single formation, is quite admirable, and I for one am in awe that the generals team was able to pull it off in such a short given time period.”

The thumps of appreciation this time share mixed feelings: sheepishness, triumph, pride, disbelief. The cheer has never rung so true, though. Byleth feels the solidarity settle through the class, and feels a little bit more confident in the future she’s been trying to write.

But’s easy to see where the Deer’s plan fell short, and as Byleth encourages discussion again, it’s clear that the class has the most to say about the strategic risks that they took. “It was a gamble to kite the Eagles and the Lions against each other,” Ferdinand argues, “because you couldn’t have known what our plans were. One of the plans suggested, at beginning of the planning day, was to avoid confrontation altogether and just hunt down Professor Eisner.”

“We did have a system to account for that,” Lysithea counters. “Between all of us, we devised a series of horn signals for alternative plans. Because it went as originally hoped, we got one blast. The second plan was actually to congregate around the flag and spearhead a concentrated attack to break through the collective Eagles and Lions.”

“You would have been crushed,” Byleth says. “At no point in the battle were the Eagles and Lions collectively reduced to a force you could have managed. However, it would have sown enough chaos that if I were on the battlefield at the time, you could have caught me a lot more easily.”

She looks over her chart on the board one last time, and figures she can move on to her next point. "Now, as I'm sure you're all well aware, I spent the majority of the game in a tree.” The house leaders share sly looks, and Claude grins as if he didn’t nearly shoot her out of said tree. “So in all honesty, I did not see all of your tactics. However, I still have a number of comments to make on your performance outside of what all of you have put forth.”

In the final row of the chart, she puts the header _commentary._ “As a faraway analysis, I can break down your three strategies for the first portion of the mock battle. The Lions played to their own strengths, the Eagles played to everyone else’s weaknesses, and the Deer played to the environment and circumstances. All three houses presented incredible tactics, and I think it’s commendable that you were able to pull yourselves together so soon after the surprise attack.

“To be honest with all of you, this mock battle is traditionally meant to be a free-for-all battle, with the house professors working with their own houses to try and take down the other two.” She purses her lips. “I don’t like that idea very much. It promotes attrition and destruction, and that’s not what I’m here to do as your combat instructor. We don’t make soldiers at the Officers Academy.” She fixes the class with a look, and immediately they all go still. “We make _leaders._ The majority of you come from positions of power within your nations, and you know that peace is a precious commodity to be earned.

“So I petitioned my idea to the faculty. Seteth tried to shut me down almost immediately. Even the Archbishop was on the fence about it at first, because of how much emphasis I put on collaboration as opposed to competition.” She lifts an eyebrow mischievously. “It was actually the idea of the faculty launching an attack in the latter half that convinced her. I called it learning on the job, and it sold the idea, I suppose. Not only did it raise the stakes, but it also guaranteed that none of you would win unless you learned to collaborate.”

“So the game was rigged against us to begin with,” Hubert muses bitterly.

Byleth shrugs. “Well, I wouldn’t say that. As long as you uncovered the loophole in the ruleset, you would have easily emerged victorious. The student body easily outnumbered the faculty about ten-to-one. All the faculty members carried hints of my location with them—Alois’s was the worst, I’m still impressed that you were able to decipher it first.

“The key lay in all of you being able to learn to collaborate, and I’m glad that you did. Did you not feel proud of yourselves knowing that you overcame the entire faculty of the Officers Academy while united?” Byleth drops her chalk back in her pocket, satisfied with her speech. “I’m proud of all of you for having done so well. I may be a new professor, but all of you far exceeded my expectations. Well done.”

Every single word of that comes from the bottom of her heart. She’s seen them carry out so much carnage against each other, and to see them unite, even if it was against her, was beyond impressive. Watching them work together was phenomenal, and every time she saw them fight back-to-back instead of crossing blades together gave her a shock of adrenaline.

It means she has hope.

“Do any of you have any final comments to make on the exercise?” she asks, for good measure. No harm in sourcing more feedback, after all. “Mr. Kirsten?”

“Professor, it’s nearly ten o’clock,” Raphael says sheepishly.

Byleth looks over at the clock, and it is _absolutely_ ten o’clock. There is a crowd gathering at the door—her next class. “Thank you for reminding me,” she says. “Please submit any final comments you have directly to my office hours. Before I dismiss class, I still have a few quick words.” 

She looks around, meeting the eyes of every one of her students, some of whom are half out of their seats already. “Because of your incredible success, I’m starting to think that I should implement collaborative missions throughout the rest of the year as well. Competitive missions will still occur on occasion, but I think a bit of collaboration will do us well.”

And it seems they agree. As Byleth looks around, she’s met with bright smiles and confident faces. She likes teaching like this, and if today and yesterday have been any indication, the students like learning like this. It’s unconventional, but as the students leave chattering beyond their house designations, she feels like she’s won just as much as they have.

* * *

There isn’t a meeting room in Garreg Mach designated for the house leaders, and really there shouldn’t have needed to be one, considering the competitive nature of the curriculum. The little alcove in the library, hidden behind shelves upon shelves of higher-level magic manuals, has turned into an unofficial meeting spot, with its two stools and one nice chair. They rotate who gets the nice chair on an unspoken understanding, and as Claude shows up with candlestick in hand, it seems they’ve kept up the cycle, seeing as Edelgard currently has custody of the chair.

“Did she tell you that she’s going over it in class, too?” Dimitri asks. “It seems she wants to share our little game of distraction with the entire class.”

“She sure did.” Claude puts the candlestick into the wall sconce and drops his armful of books on the table before dipping into his pocket. “She also gave me a handful of candy to share with you guys.” He tosses a red one with pink dots to Edelgard, who snatches it mid-flight without even looking, and a pale indigo one to Dimitri, who notices a moment too late but still makes an elegant recovery. 

For himself, Claude opens one swirled in beige and ochre, and indulges in sweet taffy. The tiny letters on the packaging are written in Valentian script, and when he reads them slowly he can just make out the words _NOVIS TAFFY—MAPLE SUGAR_ pressed into the wax.

When he looks up, both his fellow house leaders are similarly examining their candy wrappings. _Birds of a feather flock together,_ he thinks. Foreign languages aren’t a part of the Garreg Mach curriculum, but no doubt a royal upbringing would have them learn the necessary diplomatic skills. “Mine is maple sugar,” he says.

“I have witching fern.”

“And mine, ruby fruit.” Edelgard folds the paper sharply and tucks it into her pocket. “Thank you, Claude. I know it’s bad practice to eat sweets so late at night, but…”

“Eh, we’ve all had a long day. It’s okay to take a break here and there.” Claude slips his calculus text out from the stack and opens it in his lap. “How was the firearms class today?”

Edelgard groans drags her hands down her face in exhaustion—uncharacteristic of a house leader, much less a princess, but between the three of them it seems somewhat okay to let the little things slide. “While I appreciate Professor Pronislav’s attention to detail, I must confess that his teaching is just so _bland.”_

Dimitri makes a face of equal parts understanding and torment. “He does have a tendency to drone on without much care for whether or not anyone has picked up what he’s saying.”

“Only exacerbated by the fact that we aren’t actually permitted to _use_ the firearms,” Edelgard says. “Is there really a point to a firearms handling course if all we’re going to do is write essays on how to use them?”

“Maybe we’re all just too used to Professor Eisner’s teaching now,” Claude muses.

The candle flickers, and they all sit in silence, pondering when they became _spoiled_ by the unorthodox teaching methods of their equally unorthodox combat teacher. “It does stand that her hands-on approach is more… befitting a military academy,” Edelgard finally says. “Unfortunately, I don’t know how that reflects on the rest of the Officers Academy.”

“It is a better method of learning to fight than sitting indoors and writing essays,” Dimitri concedes, “and it seems to be working quite well, considering we all have different strengths and weaknesses. I quite enjoy being able to trade tips with our peers regardless of house.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been talking to Ashe about arrow tip maintenance. It’s nice to see what a change in perspective can do, huh.”

They fall silent again. It’s certainly been a strange two weeks of school, nothing like anything else they’ve ever been through. Professor Eisner has a hidden agenda—no, a hidden _curriculum,_ really—and there’s no telling what she wants from them as students, and as future peers.

_We don’t make soldiers at the Officers Academy. We make leaders._

Claude doesn’t know what kind of leader she wants him to be, but he does know what kind of leader he _can_ be. In the end, that three-way chess battle is really just going to come down to who can throw the tides in their favour, and that’s all going to bank on who can cultivate the most knowledge of their dear professor.

Oh sure, he just spent an hour bantering with her about the politics of the Archanean archipelago, but he hasn’t missed the notes that line the weekly schedule on her wall: _training with Dimitri and monastery kids Wednesday 3:30–4:30, afternoon tea with Edelgard Sunday._ They’re all going into this with equal odds, and it’s going to come down to the smallest things that will determine who will win.

And if that’s the case, Claude isn’t going to let the opportunity slide.

The other two seem to be assessing the same thing, and for a moment the alcove grows tense and the shadows on the wall seem to grow. Claude digs into his pocket again and brings out more of the taffies. This time, he does manage to catch them off guard, nailing Edelgard in the forehead and Dimitri on the nose with flying candies. “A bit more sugar for a long night?”

“A little more can’t hurt,” Edelgard says.

The candle flickers, the night drags on, and the three house leaders fall back into their books and think about a new dawn for all of Fódlan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now, i'm not saying Byleth is a history nut, but Byleth is a history nut and i will champion this till the end of my days  
> in all sincerity though you can't teach combat without looking at the past! my Thing is more or less weapon construction (and blacksmithing!) if i'm being honest, but i have some friends who know a fair bit about historical war tactics who i will be grilling for information. also i don't know a whole lot about Jugdral, but that's a problem for after finals  
> a fun fact: to date i have made 28 flavours of Novis Taffy, and i intend to make more as seasonal flavours! maple sugar, witching fern and ruby fruit would correspond to the real-world flavours of maple, lavender and pomegranate respectively. since they are imported candies (and very fancy ones too) each flavour name is actually just a poshed-up version of whatever the actual flavour is.  
> until we meet again, friends, stay safe!


	9. all hands on deck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tactics is only fun to learn when your instructor lets you smack them across the face in the process.

There is a cat on Byleth when she wakes up.

This is strange, because she is absolutely certain her window was closed when she went to sleep at night. She barely manages to lift her head, and confirms that the window is, in fact, closed, and there is still a cat napping sprawled across her chest and abdomen. Unsurprisingly, it is the ragdoll.

“Sir,” she says, “ma’am. Captain. I’m going to need you to move.”

The ragdoll blinks at her lazily, opens its jaws in what she assumes is a yawn, and promptly hurls up a hairball directly onto her chest.

It is thus that at about quarter past seven on Friday morning, a scream splits the morning air at Garreg Mach Monastery. Edelgard and Hubert look up from where they’re having breakfast in the mess hall, and exchange a wide-eyed glance before chalking it up to typical Garreg Mach shenanigans. In her room, Hilda groans and slams her pillow over her head. Hidden in the library, Linhardt snorts and rolls off the desk where he’s been asleep.

In the meantime, Byleth has decided that it’s okay to draw up a bath on a Friday morning, despite the fact that it is Friday morning. The ragdoll has long escaped under her bed, leaving Byleth to deal with the absolute disaster of her nightgown. Any time she moves, the hairball rolls a little closer to her collarbones, and she has to inch herself off the bed in a way that doesn’t cause the damn thing to roll directly into  _ her _ mouth.

Sothis, for her part, is laughing very loudly. It is not helping Byleth at all.

Eventually, she manages to find a scrap of bandage to scoop the hairball off herself and opens the window. The ragdoll darts out from underneath her bed and escapes into the morning before she can hurl the damn hairball out. “You shouldn’t have been in here to begin with,” she shouts after it, and makes sure to  _ lock _ her window after she closes it.

Most of the students aren’t usually in the hallways when Byleth gets up. The few that are—Edelgard, Hubert and Ingrid typically—are either of an extremely studious nature or have just acclimated to early mornings. Thankfully, this means Byleth can slip through the hallways unnoticed, clutching a clean change of clothes, a towel, and a bar of Nibbs’s lavender oatmeal soap. She heads to the baths, locks the door behind her, and draws up a warm bath.

As she sinks into the water and begins to drown in steam and lavender, Sothis perches on the edge of the tub. Where her ethereal robes dip into the water, existence seems to run thin and shimmer.  _ “You’re growing spoiled,” _ she chides, smacking Byleth upside the head with an errant flap of her hand.  _ “Defeated by a little hairball? Ha! I’ve seen you wear the blood of a felled beast for two days straight before you bothered to cleanse yourself of the stench.” _

“That was in wartime,” Byleth mumbles. “I can afford to not have cat slobber all over my chest on a school day.”

_ “Hmph. You can’t keep the cats forever, you know. I’ve seen you try to budget your candy and your weapons. How will you pay for cat food when your paycheck barely covers your snacking habits?” _

“My cats are good mousers.” She lifts one hand from the (warm, comfortable) tub to flick water into Sothis’s shimmering form. The water splatters and evaporates in godly essence. “And g— _ you _ know above all others how many mice there are at Garreg Mach.”

Sothis sticks her tongue out and smacks Byleth on the head again before fading from existence once more. Her grumbling and mumbling echoes into background noise, and Byleth sinks deeper into the tub, holding her breath as the water rises past her chin, her lips, her nose, her shuttered eyes. She counts an eternity and one second, until the world starts to swirl in neon colours again, and only then does she burst from the water, comforted by the warmth but still fragments of a whole woman.

She doesn’t want to admit it, but Sothis is right about some things. The eternal cycle of settling into Garreg Mach, losing five years in the blink of an eye, and waking up to a broken Fódlan continues to shock her time after time. It shouldn’t, it really shouldn’t, but she lets herself relax too far again and again and watches the aftermath like it’s the first time. 

But the world moves on, and so does she. Byleth rises from the water, clothed in steam; she towels herself off, slips into a cotton shift, and leaves the baths with mind and thoughts laid bare before her. The flow of time isn’t going to part to allow her to step through. She’s gotta change with the tides and bend the future gradually, piece by piece. The more she can drive towards a peaceful end, the less she’ll have to worry about if she goes falling into a cliff this time around.

(She makes the mental note to talk to Edelgard about her uncle’s nefarious plans over tea. They’ve arranged to meet up in the garden this week, which might be a little too much exposure, but Byleth knows of a solarium on monastery grounds that could be the perfect place.)

For now, she returns to her room. Nibbs’s olive oil balm goes smoothly into her hair, which she dries first with a towel and then a blast of wind magic. The clock reads five-to-eight; she checks and double checks to make sure. There’s plenty of time to grab a nice breakfast before class starts—maybe even some oatmeal with cinnamon sugar, if they’re serving it in the mess hall today.

She takes a last look at her lesson plans for the day, checks it with her calendar, and bares her teeth at the future. There’s no time to waste, after all. If she is to change the future by the threads upon which it sits, then it starts with today, and getting her message across to the ones who will be her battlefield peers.

Byleth opens the door, and walks away.

* * *

“We’re going to talk tactics today,” Byleth tells her class as they convene in the courtyard. Some have their training weapons at hand; those that don’t seem antsy. “You may have heard stories about my successes.” A few glances are deliberately thrown at Leonie, who pretends to take interest in the pebbles underfoot. “Today, we’ll examine and celebrate yours instead.”

She marches to the centre of the courtyard, takes her knife out of its sheath, and throws it at the ground, where it sticks upright in the dirt. “No weapons today,” she announces, ignoring the wide-eyed looks she’s getting. “We’re going to play human chess. Combat is battle on a small scale. Tactics is battle on a large scale.” She points at the knife in the ground. “We’ll use that to represent the tree where I hid during the mock battle. Please arrange yourselves across the courtyard as you were at the beginning of the exercise.”

They shuffle off quickly, laying their training weapons along a wall before splitting off into their houses. A few of them seem anxious, even—the Lions stand around awkwardly, clumped around Dedue (who seems to be a beacon of dependability, as always) and whispering among themselves. Byleth strides over quickly, and they all stiffen. “Everything going alright?”

“Of course, Professor,” Dimitri says quickly, “we’re just… setting up.”

“I must say, it was certainly smart of you all to take inspiration from a historical textbook,” she says, and the Lions seem to perk up. “After all, they typically don’t teach things that don’t work. I’d like to see your thought process in the coordination and planning of your flanking maneuver.”

She thinks back to her plans for the mock battle. “Two o’clock,” she shouts, voice echoing hollowly over the courtyard. “Please move into your positions.”

They shift like armor plates, slow and restless. The Lions split into their respective groups: Ashe and Sylvain on one side, Ingrid and Mercedes on the other, and Dimitri’s flag group moving straight forward. On the other side of the courtyard, the Eagles plunge forward towards the centre of the field, with Edelgard leading the charge. All around, the Deer disperse, starting to loosely surround the other two armies.

“Stop right there,” Byleth yells, and they all freeze where they are, starting to make first contact. “Let’s observe what you’ve made of the battlefield at this point. Mr. von Bergliez, two steps back, you weren’t quite that far forward at the time.” Caspar shuffles his two steps back, and she nods approvingly. 

“Eagles, up until this point you have been entirely in a single group moving forward. Miss von Hresvelg clashes with Mr. Blaiddyd around… here.” She taps the area with her foot, and Edelgard and Dimitri shuffle up to the plate. “Notice how we’ve established contact. With the two flanks of the Lions' formation moving in, we now have a fighting front to look at." Satisfied with what she's said so far, Byleth steps back. "Please continue."

The Golden Deer start to encircle the rest of the students, spread out evenly across the perimeter. "Who was it who called off the flanking attack?" Byleth asks. "I didn't get to see."

Felix raises his hand. "I heard the Deer blow the horn," he says plainly. "If we didn't get moving, we would have gotten completely surrounded and demolished."

"Interesting. Performance points for good battlefield analysis, Mr. Fraldarius." Byleth relishes just a little too much when Felix's eyes go wide, and the students start to whisper among themselves about her infamous  _ performance mark _ . Realistically, it's just for good practice and judgement; she's already given several students performance points for good weapon upkeep. It's just greatly amusing to award it randomly and see them try and figure out her criteria.

The mock-mock battle continues: Claude pantomimes the horn signal, and the Deer begin to close in. "We weren't so spread far apart," he insists. "We split into about... groups of three or four at a time. It was easier to move in small groups, anyhow."

"A good choice," Byleth says. "During my mercenary days, when our group was too big, we would split into groups of about four individuals each during skirmishes. Each group would have a team leader, or at least a coordinator, who would manage the use of space among all of us.”

“I’m assuming you were that coordinator more often than not, Teach,” Claude says dryly.

“It came down to the scenario, though I admit that nepotism may have been a deciding factor.” She puts two fingers to her lips and whistles shrilly, startling some of the students. “Now the faculty has joined the battle. I specifically directed each faculty member to a specific zone to target a group of students who I predicted would clump together.” She raises an eyebrow at the gathered students. “With the exception of the Deer, who ran off in every which direction.”

There’s a light ripple of laughter, but they clump as they did when faced with the faculty’s attack. “This is about when you three—” she gestures at the house leaders, beckoning them forward. “—figured out the loophole in the rules, and informed your peers of it. Performance points to Miss Arnault for the amplification spell,” she adds, “it nearly knocked me out of the tree when you used it.”

Dorothea beams at her.

“And then all of you went off like headless mosquitoes,” she says dryly, “and took down all my well-stationed colleagues across the field in record time.” This gets a giggle out of some of them. “And I had to backflip out of a tree because I got shot at. Performance points to Mr. von Riegan for accuracy.”

She gathers them all back together in the centre of the courtyard, where she then places herself between the three house leaders. “How many of you were close enough to see us duke it out at the end of the mission?” she asks. Only a few people raise their hands; she’d figured as much, considering the battlefield was still in chaos when she left her hiding spot. “Ah. Miss von Hresvelg, Mr. Blaiddyd, Mr. von Riegan, care to join me in a dramatic re-enactment?”

Almost hesitantly, the three of them gather around her, each assuming a position. “I was able to incapacitate Mr. Blaiddyd rapidly by driving the tip of his spear into the ground, which is a technique I’ll be teaching next week,” she says. “Meanwhile, Miss von Hresvelg, Mr. von Riegan and I began to circle each other. Do you recall what occurred during this portion of our faceoff?”

The house leaders exchange wry looks with each other. “Well, with your attention off Dimitri, we figured we should keep your attention on us until he could get that spear and sweep you like chimney dust,” Claude says, getting some laughter for his blunt joking. “So we got you talking.”

“And then I wrestled my spear out of the ground and, um, swept you like chimney dust,” Dimitri finishes off, at least having the dignity to look  _ a little _ guilty.

“Good. This is a strategy I want you all to play around with when you can. Getting me to talk and explain my own thought process was an excellent way to  _ buy time,” _ she says, “but it doesn’t always work. I want you all to be aware of your opponent, and assess the situation before you decide to start talking.

“There is a loophole to the human psyche. Its name is pride.” She beckons Edelgard forwards a little. “People who think they’ve won want to gloat their victory, and you can use that to your advantage. Keep in mind, however, that it’s not always safe to do so.” She turns away from the class. “Miss von Hresvelg, we are going to banter back and forth, and when you think you have seized an appropriate opening, you are to slap me across the face, okay?”

Edelgard nods, and in the fraction of a second that she does, Byleth darts out and smacks her gently upside the head. “You can also use your words to distract your opponent through confusion,” she explains, turning back to the class and narrowly dodging a now-grinning Edelgard’s hit. “For example, right now Miss von Hresvelg thinks I’m focused on teaching all of you, but—”

She swings around and delivers a light backhanded hit to Edelgard’s cheekbone. “Thank you for helping me demonstrate,” she says, dipping her head to Edelgard. “All of you, find a partner or a group. No more than three, though, it gets harder with more people involved. I want to see all of you playing this game as well.”

The class splits, and all Byleth can do is observe and take pride in the distribution of houses. Lysithea and Annette have taken to each other like fish to water, and are laughing as they dance back and forth across the courtyard. Mercedes squeals as she dodges a hit from Ignatz, who apologizes profusely for nearly bumping into Hilda and Hubert and gets his glasses knocked askew while looking away. It seems Byleth’s little experimental exercise has gone well.

“Professor Eisner?”

She turns, and there’s Leonie, looking honestly  _ bashful _ as she approaches. “How can I help you, Miss Pinelli?”

“There are an uneven number of… groups,” she says, gesturing to the group where the three house leaders are now darting in and out at each other. “Would it be okay if I sparred with you, Professor?”

Leonie’s got sass, but she’s also got more bravery than more than men three times her size, and a bite to match. “Of course,” Byleth says, tossing her jacket aside. “Do not hold back on me, Miss Pinelli.”

In response, Leonie darts out to smack her, and Byleth quickly sidesteps and manages to bop her on the head. Leonie laughs with glee, and lands a hit herself while Byleth’s hand is overstretched. “You’re incredibly fast, Professor,” she says, “but not as fast as me!”

“Then I’ll just have to prove you wrong,” Byleth quips, and leans away from another hit.

It’s incredible how much her students have improved lately, seemingly overnight. Maybe it’s because she’s finally letting go of those futures past where they’ve become battlefield beasts, but even then there’s so much they’ve accomplished just over the past few days. The mock battle was just the start—Byleth wonders what’ll happen once she starts introducing more complex techniques and exercises.

In the present, she dodges Leonie’s swing and reaches in for her own. Leonie’s a good fighter and a decent tactician, and it’s clear that her admiration of Byleth’s father comes from a sense of self-aspiration, to reach a higher standard. It’s a sentiment Byleth herself shares, that drive to constantly better oneself to protect her loved ones. She darts in, crosses her hand against Leonie’s, and gives her a rare smile for her performance.

“Let’s bring it in,” she calls to the class, and all around her students start to collapse in mirth and laughter. Her exercise, it seems, was a success: she’s never tried to get them to fight by  _ talking, _ but judging by the way they chatter among themselves, they’ve enjoyed the experience just as much as she did. “Hands on your heads, let’s take a slow lap around the courtyard.”

She joins them this time, watching from behind the group. Leonie really gave her a run for her money, owing mostly to her sheer aggressiveness. Byleth highly suspects this is out of pride and competition, though by the way Leonie tells Hilda and Ingrid excitedly about their match, it's likely that she’s given her student a new star to chase after. 

And she's okay with that. Byleth is well aware that she isn't perfect, but if she can do anything to guide her students away from the fate she's seen them fall to, she's willing to be their saint, their guiding star, their too-young professor.

Sothis is right about some things: she can't really afford to relax, even in this time of relative peace. She has to seek to constantly better herself, make herself a beacon of light and try not to lead them astray.

(She still thinks it's appropriate to draw up a bath on a Friday morning, though.)

“Well, that’s all for today,” she says, and yanks her knife out of the dirt. There’s only a bit of dust on the surface; she wipes it off on the edge of her shirt and sheathes it once more before dusting off her jacket. “I’m going to be assigning a bit of homework today, please stop groaning, it shouldn’t take long. I’m opening a box in my room. Into said box you will be depositing a letter.” She gives them all a pointed stare. “Not to me. To your future self.

“I want you all to put your aspirations in this letter. It doesn’t have to be formal, Goddess knows I don’t care for grammar, but I do need your hopes for yourself. Any weapons you want to learn to use, any skills you want to pick up, any certifications you want to acquire, put it all in there,” she says. “I’ll be reading them all, so don’t put anything in there that you wouldn’t want me to read, but I’ll be using them as a guide for where you want to progress. At the end of the year, I’ll hand them back out to all of you so you can see how you’ve grown, and how your dreams have as well.”

Ignatz raises his hand, and she nods at him. “Will we be allowed to change our aspirations through the year as well?” he asks, seeming just a little nervous. “In case we find something new?”

“That’s completely alright,” Byleth assures him. “My office hours are always open for consultation in the event that you should ever want to explore a new combat style or a new weapon.”

She looks over all of them, wide-eyed and ready to make their mark on the world. By all the stars in the sky, she hopes that mark will be a good one. “Class is dismissed.”

* * *

The box fills up surprisingly quickly. After her office hours end, Byleth dares to dally at the library briefly to pick up a copy of a magic primer, and by the time she’s returned, the ragdoll has bribed itself back into her arms with pitiful mewling, and the box at her door is just about full. She dumps the cat on her bed and the contents of the box on her desk, and sits down to read.

Words come a lot more easily to her than numbers. It’s true that Hanneman’s put a word to her inability to do math, but  _ dyscalculia _ still feels like a foreign concept, a faraway cry rather than a diagnosis. Either way, she’s glad it’s exempted her from having to teach or, Sothis forbid,  _ grade _ higher maths.

She sorts the papers in the box as the ragdoll climbs into her lap and the bombay drapes itself over her desk like some sort of viscous feline fluid. The papers get sorted by type first—she hasn’t collected all the comments on her mock battle yet, after all, so those go in a separate pile. Then they get sorted by her class timeslots: nine, ten, two-thirty, three-thirty. After that, it’s simple to just sort the names into alphabetical order from sheer memory, even with the handful missing their names; she matches them based on handwriting instead.

Of course, it’s still a hassle to actually read the damn papers. She forces herself to parse through her three-thirty class first, shooting longing glances at the nine o’clock stack before she sighs, grounds herself in the fur of the ragdoll, and gets back to reading. She’s run this exercise a million times over with her classes, after all, and every single time every student gives the exact same responses, to the point that even though they’re sorted into classes instead of houses this time around, she knows exactly who aspires to become what.

Except her nine o’clock class. They’re her wildcards, her aces, her not-so-secret favourites, and even though her curriculum remains unchanged across all her classes they continue to astound her time and time again with their performance. She’s excited to see what  _ they _ want to achieve in her class, now that she has the grounds to teach them to their full potential.

There’s a pull in her gut that tells her that Sothis is nearby, and she instinctively checks the door to make sure it’s locked before the progenitor god manifests in her bedroom, even though she knows no one will see.  _ “You should eat a fruit,” _ Sothis chides, perched upon Byleth’s desk.  _ “Keep up your health while you can.” _

Byleth raises an eyebrow. “What happened to being spoiled?”

_ “You ate mostly fruit and meats as a mercenary,” _ Sothis reminds her.  _ “And now look at you! Your diet consists of bread, candy and very little else. At this rate you’ll grow even  _ more _ spoiled.” _

“I do balance my diet,” she argues, but Sothis has decided to blow a raspberry at her and kick away from the desk. It’s amazing how she seemingly swims through the air, boosting herself forward with a mere push of her arms. The Siamese yowls as Sothis lifts it from its sleeping place in Byleth’s closet, but quiets down soon after it figures out who it’s yowling at.

Thus, all three cats are satisfied: Byleth drops her nice fountain pen and her papers to give both the bombay and the ragdoll scritches, getting a chorus of purrs and trills for her troubles. The Siamese, probably a fair bit older than the other two cats, seems comfortable napping in Sothis’s lap, swaddled in her godly skirts with a calming hand running through its fur.

Sothis herself looks like she’s satisfied, too. She’s always looked much older than her child form betrayed to Byleth, but here in the serene quiet of the room, she just looks like a girl with a cat in her lap, sitting on the desk with her skirts flowing over her knees.

“They’re being honest with themselves,” Byleth says. “The two-thirty class, I mean. The ten o’clock class is still being overly ambitious, though it’s not surprising. Did I scare the two-thirty class a little too much?”

Sothis looks pensive.  _ “Perhaps it was the mock battle,” _ she posits.  _ “I feel as though  _ you _ may have been a little overambitious with it, and scared them too much. They are not used to change, after all.” _

“They’re mostly teenagers, they’ve been seeing nothing but change for half a decade.” Nevertheless, Byleth takes a scrap of parchment from the corner of a book she’d been reading (so much for that bookmark) and puts pen to paper:  _ 2:30, ease them in. _ “Do you mind if I move?” she asks the ragdoll, which blinks up at her with beautiful blue-grey eyes and yawns, revealing a gaping maw of teeth. “I will take that as a yes.”

_ “Do you actually read these?” _ Sothis asks as Byleth pins the scrap of paper to the bulletin board.  _ “Some of the notes you’ve pinned up are starting to stack.” _

“On occasion. When I need a reminder of why I’m doing this.”

Sothis is quiet for a bit, dancing her fingers through the Siamese’s fur.  _ “You’re serious about fixing things this time around,” _ she says finally.

“I was serious about it the first time I tried coming back,” is Byleth’s answer. “It just took a few tries to figure out what I  _ really _ needed to do.”

There’s a knock at the door, and all of them freeze. “Professor?” Seteth calls from the other side of the door. “Are you available at this moment?”

Byleth shoots a desperate look at the cat in her lap, and then the god on her desk, and decides that  _ no, _ she is very much not available. “A moment, please,” she says, as Sothis holds back a laugh. The window creaks more than she’d like, but the cats are understanding as to why she’s suddenly funneling them out. “Just a second.”

_ “He’ll find out about the cats eventually,” _ Sothis tells her. She means to say,  _ your happiness is going to end whether you like it or not, no matter how much you fight for it. _

“I know,” Byleth replies. She means to say,  _ then I’ll fight for it till my dying breath. _

With a final grimace, Sothis disappears in a shimmer of light, and Byleth unlocks her door to find Seteth holding the confession box. “I must apologize for burdening you with these, Professor,” he says, “but there’s been a bit of an emergency in the cathedral that I must attend to. Would you mind responding to these student concerns for tonight?”

“Not a problem,” she says, taking the box. In her peripherals, Sothis is blowing a raspberry. As soon as Seteth leaves, she intends to blow one back. “I was thinking of taking it up on the regular, anyways.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have goblin opinions and you _will_ read them. Leonie deserves the world and also i think her hero should be Byleth instead of Jeralt. also Sothis should be allowed to touch things, namely cats, because everyone deserves cats.  
> my exams are over, and i've finally been able to sit down properly and get some writing done! i did a lot of unnecessary worldbuilding extrapolation (eg. i solved crest inheritance, wrote a whole church liturgy, started an encyclopedia of Fódlan's native wildlife, invented a sport) and a lot of that features in the next handful of chapters!  
> thank you all for three hundred kudos! i'm really honoured to receive all this support from everyone - it really helps me keep going!  
> wishing you all the best until next time!


	10. take your tea with a grain of salt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Lords and ladies sit down to tea_  
>  What shall we have, what will it be?

Byleth doesn’t think she has a favourite tea, personally. It really does depend on the day, and the situation, and how much sleep she’s gotten the night before and the number of tests she’s had to grade in the past few days and the number of classes she’s taught so far.

But a _time_ for tea? Her favourite is easily afternoon, which is when she’s got her tea with Edelgard scheduled for. It sounds so sophisticated—Edelgard told her, almost jokingly, that it has something to do with old Archanean traditions—but in reality, just the simplest things make the best tea. She grabs some pastries from the coffeeshop in Remire when she goes on Saturday morning, and is convinced by one of the baristas to indulge in a little bit of ice cream.

Her other main purchase in Remire is tea. There’s no point, after all, in having a tea party without tea. The tradition in Fódlan, as she’s discovered from being in the circles of royalty and high nobility, is for the host to supply the tea, and oftentimes the accompanying desserts as well.

“I think it’s a cute tradition,” Nibbs tells Byleth when she stops by. She doesn’t miss how the shopkeeper’s eyes light up when she walks in, or how her feet tap out a nervous rhythm under her voluminous skirt. “Although I think you’re having _high tea_ in the afternoon, so it’s not really afternoon tea. In Fhirdiad, there are specific desserts that you’re supposed to have on specific days of the week.”

“That sounds cumbersome to make.”

“Not at all!” Nibbs beams at her. “There’s a children’s rhyme that goes with it, too, I’m sure all your students from the Kingdom know it.” She clears her throat; Byleth has never heard her sing before, and is pleasantly surprised when her voice takes on a sweet, lilting tone:

_“Lords and ladies sit down to tea_

_Monday morn, what will it be?_

_Saint Indech gives us wisdom to make_

_A treat for our tea, sweet walnut cake._

_Lords and ladies dance in a line_

_What about Tuesday, how shall they dine?_

_Saint Cichol will lend us his strength_

_We'll pull some sweet taffy, and eat at length._

_Lords and ladies dally away_

_What shall they have on merry wednesday?_

_Saint Cethleann gives us her heart_

_We'll make with love some sweet apple tart._

_Lords and ladies all take their leave_

_What will they have on Thursday eve?_

_Saint Macuil will teach us the truth_

_We'll make sweet scones with butter and fruit._

_Lords and ladies swing to the tune_

_What's to eat, Friday afternoon?_

_Saint Seiros will guide our way_

_We will be patient and make sweet souffle._

_Lords and ladies seek out a treat_

_Saturday passes, what's there to eat?_

_Goddess watches us from above_

_We eat sweet chocolate filled with her love._

_Lords and ladies all attend mass_

_On sunny Sunday, what will pass?_

_No more tea, not for today_

_For sweet Fódlan, hence we will pray._

_Lords and ladies sit down to tea_

_What shall we have, what will it be?”_

She laughs after her voice trails off, and claps Byleth on the back. “Sunday’s supposed to be mass day,” she says teasingly. “And yet here you are, planning a whole tea party anyways.”

“I’m not religious, Nibbs.”

“And neither am I!” Nibbs spreads her hands in a sort of _I’m helpless_ gesture, and grins. “Well, no, I grew up in in Fhirdiad, of course I was raised in a religious household. But I don’t usually attend Sunday mass.” She shakes her head and clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “When they designed this village, no one had the sense to build a church. They probably thought we could all make the trek up to the monastery once a week.”

(That’s part of the reason why Byleth fails, time and time again, to save Remire. Most civilians will turn to the Goddess for help under dire circumstances, and Remire Village just does not have a church. She doesn’t know if it would help if there were one; having all the villagers in one place could just mean even more casualties.)

“You grew up in Fhirdiad,” Byleth says, trying to shake herself from her thoughts before they drag her down. “And yet you’ve moved to an Adrestian village. What happened?”

Nibbs pouts cutely. “That was a business decision my parents made. I was real little when we moved here, so I don’t really consider myself as being from Faerghus, to be honest. Remire’s always been my home for as long as I can remember.” Her eyes light up. “Well, except for that year when I went to study in Fhirdiad, but Remire is… well, Remire.”

“It’s nice to know you have a home you can always return to,” Byleth says, “and I presume friends as well.”

To her surprise, Nibbs actually _blushes._ “Well, not all my friends are here in Remire,” she argues, and Byleth figures she’s probably talking about her mysterious friend at the monastery, when she continues: “I mean, you’re up at Garreg Mach, aren’t you?”

“Nibbs,” Byleth says, “I’ve spoken to you twice, and you already consider me a friend?”

“Well, why wouldn’t I? All my customers are my friends.” Nibbs grins. “And besides, you came here to talk even though you didn’t want to buy anything. That makes you my friend.” She gasps. “Seiros above, you’re smiling! I didn’t even think that was possible!”

“I am most certainly not,” says Byleth, who most certainly is.

In the end, she’s able to tear herself away from Nibbs (“you gotta have tea with ‘Mil and Val and I one of these days!”) and back to the monastery. Sothis watches in amusement as she dumps the bag of Novis Taffies that she’s bought into the basket she keeps in her drawer. _“Are you not afraid that your cats will get at it?”_

“They already have,” Byleth informs her, and makes a face. “They _know_ they’re not allowed in this drawer anymore.”

She wakes up on Sunday morning realizing that, _oh no,_ the pastries she got from the coffeeshop in Remire are, in fact, not the sweet buns that she knows Edelgard enjoys. She rolls over, hears a muffled yowl, rolls the other way, and falls off the bed. “I am _so_ sorry,” she tells the bombay cat, which has since fled into the closet.

It’ll be difficult trying to get the sweet buns now; she won’t be able to make it back in time if she runs to Remire, and she doubts they’ll even have it, considering they’re a delicacy of Faerghus. Her best bet will be convincing the kitchen staff in the mess hall to let her cook, but even then, she can’t quite recall the recipe, and where will she get the ingredients or have the time to cook—

She throws open her door, and is greeted by the pleasantly surprised face of Archbishop Rhea. “Good morning, dear Professor,” Rhea says, as Byleth stares at her and tries to remember what the protocol is for when the Archbishop pays a visit to your room in person at seven-thirty in the morning in casual robes instead of her full regalia. Unfortunately, she turns up nothing. “Would you mind horribly doing me a solid this morning?”

Byleth nods, and Rhea smiles serenely. “Your dependability is admirable,” she says. “One of the altar bearers for today’s mass service fell sick last night, and is unable to attend and perform her role. I understand it is a lot to ask, but I have exhausted all the remaining options, and I must ask you to be an altar bearer in this mass service.”

This is where Byleth can _feel_ herself being pulled in two directions: she wants her afternoon tea to be a pleasant experience, but she can’t turn down the Archbishop, not when clearly mass can’t run without the necessary altar bearer. Byleth is suddenly made very aware of the fact that despite the turmoil, most of her students are still, in fact, religious, and to have mass cancelled because their professor couldn’t fill a simple role would be incredibly spiritually damaging for them.

Sothis, for her part, is uncharacteristically silent. Byleth wonders if it’s because she’s uneasy with the idea of mass, or because she’s the star of the show.

“I’ve never been in a mass service before,” is what she ends up saying.

“Oh, that isn’t a problem,” Rhea assures her. “Have you gotten the chance to wash and have breakfast yet?”

“No.”

“Then do so, please. The service is not short, and I wouldn’t want you to feel faint for lack of food.” Rhea reaches out with one graceful hand and touches her shoulder gently. “I’ll have the kitchen staff make you something nourishing, dear heart.”

“You really don’t have to, Archbishop,” Byleth protests, but it’s too late, and Rhea is already headed off in the direction of the mess hall. She sighs, and closes the door, and resigns herself to the fact that this is just her life now.

She’s just gotten properly washed up and dressed when Rhea knocks on her door again, and she opens up to a full tray of eggs done two ways, toast, a pot of tea and some cups, and peeled slices of Noa fruit. “The kitchen staff inform me that you take your meals alone in your room often,” Rhea says with considerable amusement. “Is this a habit left over from your mercenary days?”

“No.” She accepts the cup of tea as gracefully as she can and takes a thin sip. It tastes of angelica tea, though there’s the lightest taste of something more. “My colleagues all have very different schedules from me, and it would be unprofessional for me to dine regularly with my students.”

“Oh, dear heart, there isn’t anything unprofessional about socializing with them,” Rhea tells her. “You aren’t much unlike them. I daresay you could learn much about them and yourself outside the classroom. Why, do you not have a student who is two years your senior?”

“Mercedes von Martritz.”

“Ah, I see. She attends mass regularly, and has volunteered on more than one occasion to help wash the linens afterwards. Her faith is truly impressive.” For a moment, Rhea looks far younger than Byleth knows her to be, and all at once an impressionable young woman instead of a world-weary hero burdened by a lifetime of lies. “Pardon. I seem to have gotten distracted. Do eat, dear heart. I will explain the order of mass in layman’s terms.

“There are four parts of mass in the tradition of the Church of Seiros,” she says as Byleth takes a bite of scrambled egg and tries very hard to look dignified. “I will be presiding over the events of mass today, so the choir will sing the opening hymn while I enter. Once I reach the altar, mass will begin proper with the Liturgy of the Ten Elites. This is followed by the Liturgy of the Saints, wherein the choir will sing the Hymn of Saint Cethleann. After this, the choir will sing the offertory hymn during the Liturgy of Saint Seiros, which is where you come in.

“While the offertory hymn is sung, you and the other altar bearers will approach the altar in single file. You will bear the sacred candle, and as such you will be at the back of the line.” Rhea reaches over with one white-clad hand and plucks up a slice of Noa fruit. _Ah, so those were for her._ “Then you will place the candle on the altar, and return silently to your seat. Then there is the Liturgy of the Goddess, which encompasses the anointing, and mass ends.” She peels back the pith of the fruit to reveal the rich violet flesh inside. “Do you have any questions?”

Byleth sets down her fork, and pats her mouth with a napkin in the most ladylike fashion possible. “I admit I… have missed at least one mass service since the school year began,” she says. “I presume that there are different standards in place for the students.”

“Well… yes.” Rhea shifts ever so slightly in her seat, imperceptible to all but the most observant of eyes. “The Academy is maintained by the Church, and as such it is mandatory for all students to attend weekly mass. I am well aware that there are students who do skip, and it is my belief that they are forsaking the guiding light of the Goddess for selfish desires.”

“And what of those who do not adhere to the Church’s traditions?”

“Like dearest Shamir? I feel as though forcing belief upon someone will only brew hatred. That is why students—and staff alike—may choose not to be anointed with salt water during the Liturgy of the Goddess, but instead receive a blessing from the Goddess by approaching with their arms crossed over their chest, like so.” Rhea demonstrates lightly, bracing her arms together as one might when shielding oneself from a spell. “Some students choose willingly to enter the Goddess’s light, and those students will receive a special ceremony for their first anointment.”

She lifts one hand up to Byleth’s forehead, and sweeps her hair to one side with practiced grace. “But you, dear heart, you have already been anointed,” she murmurs, and Byleth doesn’t have to peer into the past to hear the unspoken _I anointed you myself._ “Should you choose to, you may receive the Goddess’s light either way. It is merely ceremony; what you truly should be receiving is Her message, one of loving and protecting the other.” There’s a certain clarity to her gaze as she drops her hand back into her lap. “I trust that you will choose what’s best for you.”

With a glance at the clock and a lift of her robes, Rhea stands up. “I must go be dressed for the occasion,” she says. “If you are in need of help, find Flayn. She bears the censer for the anointment, so she will be in the procession before you. She’ll help you don the necessary garments. Please be in the chapel before nine, dear heart.”

She’s gone in the blink of an eye, and Byleth is left with a slice of toast, a cooling tea set, and a bowl of peeled Noa fruit with one lonely pith. Even though the clock reads just a bit past eight, mass seems too close for comfort. There’s no way she’s going to be able to make the sweet buns for Edelgard now, or convince anyone to help her make them.

The bombay purrs at her feet, rubbing its face affectionately against her ankle. “Thank you for staying in the closet while the Archbishop was here,” she tells it, reaching an errant hand down. The bombay mewls and licks her fingers, probably because there’s butter on them.

Byleth has never been religious, unlike the vast majority of her peers. She doesn’t have the same devout faith as Mercedes, but she doesn’t have the easy, loving belief that Nibbs has. It’s strange to find solace in a religion when one’s mental roommate is the deity of said religion, after all. Beyond that, her father never took her to church as a child, and rarely sought refuge in religious buildings if at all. She knows so little about this church she was born into, the very church that seems to haunt all her decisions.

She finds Flayn in the cathedral at eight-thirty, where she’s been parsing through a stack of linens. “Professor!” she says brightly, already dressed in (what Byleth assumes are) the silky white robes of an altar bearer. “Archbishop Rhea told me you’d be joining us today for the mass service. We have a spare set of clean robes for you, I think…”

The fragile fabric in all its snow-white glory is a far departure from Byleth’s typical grey jacket, which she folds and tucks into a bin for safekeeping. This is far from the first time she’s worn ceremonial robes, but somehow the silk feels just a little too cold on her bare skin, like it’s trying to warn her of a forgotten future. The sacred candle provides no warmth when she and the other altar bearers slip from the last row of pews into the centre aisle.

Every student in the monastery is here, and all of them have their eyes on her. It must be strange for them to see their combat professor taking the place of an altar bearer. One row at a time, she tries to ignore the burning weight of the world around her: Caspar shaking Linhardt awake in the back; Marianne staring as Hilda grasps tightly onto her arm; Sylvain’s open mouth a perfect _o_ of surprise. Her three house leaders, seated together in the front row, each looking like they’d rather be anywhere but here as she bears her candle in remembrance of a living god.

 _The Goddess is our saving grace,_ the choir sings, _She protects us from all harm._ Byleth swallows down a wave of nausea as Sothis cries out in the mindscape, _I can’t save you from everything, I really can’t,_ and takes another burning step forward. The world seems to rise in a cloud of dust, like stampeding soldiers slaughtering the innocent. Her lungs are filling with smoke, and even though the cathedral is filled with light for a moment she can only see darkness—

She puts the candle on the altar, and follows Flayn silently back to their assigned pew.

Rhea told her that mass is merely a ceremony, and that the important part is to receive Her message. There’s something very different about the Goddess, protector of Fódlan, and Sothis who is so small and curled up on her throne, whispering apologies to the children she couldn’t protect and the land that fell to ruin upon her death. To receive Her message, and to hear Sothis cry, are two very, very different things.

_I trust that you will choose what’s best for you._

All eyes are on her once more when she approaches the Archbishop during the Liturgy of the Goddess. Rhea tilts her head slightly, her eyes inquisitive: _what will you choose?_

And in front of all her students, her colleagues, the Archbishop, all the clergy, and the Goddess herself, Byleth crosses her arms over her chest and takes the empty blessing.

* * *

It’s a little too windy out to have tea in the garden, so Byleth takes her pitiful pastries and tea to the sheltered courtyard. The breeze still carries there, though, and on her way out of her room she snatches up a bit of twine, which she quickly fashions into a hair tie to keep the longer strands out of her face. 

Upon reaching the courtyard, she’s surprised to find a table already set, complete with a beautiful tea set and pristine white tablecloth. A little treat tower rests in the middle of the table, decked in a fine assortment of pastries, including the very buns that Byleth had spent so long stressing out over. She picks up one of the gold-inlaid tea cups, and realizes with considerable embarrassment that in her haste to prepare for weekly tea with Edelgard, she’d forgotten to acquire an actual tea set.

In every other life, her own tea set had been a gift from Ferdinand as thanks for finding him a fellow tea connoisseur. She’s not willing to wait that long, though—immediately, her mind flies to next weekend, and how much a proper tea set will cost her, and how she’ll be able to ferry such a fragile thing back to the monastery.

Just when she’s ready to book it for the mess hall to get some hot water, the door opens behind her, and Edelgard appears in the doorway, hair pinned back neatly to keep it out of the wind. “My teacher, I apologize for being late,” she says, suddenly looking and sounding much like a student instead of an emperor. “I forgot to put a kettle on for tea, and as the water boiled I realized I forgot to bring the tea itself. I apologize sincerely.”

“That is quite alright, Miss von Hresvelg,” Byleth says, “you’re still doing much better than me. I forgot to acquire a tea set.”

Edelgard stares for a moment before lifting a hand to her lips to hide her laughter. “It seems we’ve covered everything between us, then,” she says, resting the kettle on a windowsill as she composes herself. “Thank you, my teacher.”

The tea set really is beautiful, and the teapot has a little strainer beneath the lid to catch all the tea leaves before they’re washed away. Edelgard pours water over the bergamot from Byleth’s purchases while Byleth unpacks the little paper bag with the pastries. They’re a little crushed from being packed so tightly, but they’re still just about fresh, and they look nice on the tower next to the perfect sweet buns… somewhat.

Byleth frowns. She can barely fool herself into thinking they’re presentable, how can she fool Edelgard? A few nudges, and the pastries are hidden behind the sweet buns, obscured mostly from view.

“I can see to acquiring a fine tea set for you, Professor,” Edelgard is saying as she prepares the tea. “Please, sit. It wouldn’t be very good of me as a host to let my esteemed guest stay standing.”

“I was under the impression that I’d be the one hosting tea, Miss von Hresvelg.”

“Oh, goodness no, not when I was the one who brought up in the first place,” Edelgard assures her. “And furthermore, with your… presence in this morning’s mass service, I assumed you wouldn’t have the time to prepare for hosting.”

“It was certainly an unexpected detour to my morning,” Byleth admits, as Edelgard passes her the poured cup of tea. “Thank you, Miss von Hresvelg. In all honesty, though, I was only doing a favour for the Archbishop. Today was my first time attending mass.”

Edelgard stares at her over the golden rim of her teacup. “Professor Eisner,” she says, setting both cup and saucer back down with a baffled look, “you mean to tell me you’ve _never_ attended mass?”

“Not to my memory.”

But that’s a lie, and Byleth knows very well that it is. There was always a mass after her ascension, in every other life. The details are hazier than she cares to admit, probably because she was still sleeping off her battle wounds, but the cathedral filled with light was a constant.

She wonders if this life will last long enough for her to see that light again, for her to see that crown descend upon her like a halo once more.

“Interesting.” There’s a certain grace to the way Edelgard finally takes a sip of the tea, savours it briefly and _immediately_ reaches for the milk and sugar. “It seems almost unthinkable that the daughter of the former—er, current, as well—captain of the Knights of Seiros has never attended mass, and even more so that you were asked by the Archbishop herself to be an altar bearer.”

Byleth shrugs. “My father never speaks of his past,” she says, “and I do not intend to press him about it. I also owed the Archbishop a favour.”

“Oh?”

“For her part in the mock battle.” Byleth remembers the exact terms Rhea had set for her: _consider it a favour between colleagues. But, dear heart, do indulge me with a spar, would you?_ It had turned into one of the most eventful afternoons of her life, sword against sword, hidden away in the courtyard behind locked doors. It was a frenzy on both sides, and she had the sneaking suspicion the whole time that Rhea was either holding back or just rusty from lack of practice. “We brokered a deal and sparred. It was violent.”

“I can imagine. It took several of my peers to take her down, and I doubt we could have done it had Linhardt not hexed her at a pivotal moment in the battle.” Edelgard gives her a wry smile. “I don’t doubt your abilities, Professor, but in a matchup between you and the Archbishop I honestly can’t put the odds in your favour.”

“Archbishop Rhea does have a number of years of experience on me,” Byleth says, “but it was very evenly matched, I think. She favours archaic techniques in a swordfight, but I figure she’s more confident with magic. She paces herself incredibly well, and definitely knows to strike at opportune points.”

Edelgard lights up in an instant. The topic has strayed into familiar territory, after all—nothing draws her more into casual conversation than the art of tactics. Briefly, Byleth wonders if that was all a younger Edelgard had to grow off in her darkest years, and hides her sorrow at the thought with a sip of tea. It _does_ need some milk and sugar; the bergamot is a lot stronger than what she’s used to.

“I found that during the mock battle, the Archbishop was incredibly familiar with the offensive capabilities of a shield,” Edelgard says as Byleth unceremoniously shovels sugar into her tea. “Is she ambidextrous? The way she was able to effectively wield her sword and shield as fully autonomous weapons seems to indicate so.”

“If she is, I certainly applaud her for it.” This time, the tea is a lot more palatable, though still strong. Byleth takes a sip and sets the cup back in the saucer. “Her shield of preference is of a smaller build than those typically carried by foot soldiers, so I can’t imagine how much coordination she must have between her hands.”

“Forgive my forwardness, my teacher, but will we be experimenting with similar techniques throughout the school year?”

Byleth raises an eyebrow. “You’re free to experiment with any weapons you may choose in my class, Miss von Hresvelg,” she says. “I read your letter, by the way. Your honesty is commendable. Not many of your peers were so willing to admit their weaknesses, and fewer yet had ideas for plans to act upon.” _Those very few were quite literally you and your fellow house leaders._ “Well done.”

“I… thank you, my teacher.” It’s amusing to see Edelgard try so desperately to hide her blush, fail, and mask it as she reaches for the pastry tower. “I would like to try one of the pastries you brought, if that’s okay.”

“They’re from Remire. I thought you might like them.”

The pastry practically crumbles into Edelgard’s hand as she lifts it up. “Oh, the filling is Noa fruit,” she says, pleasantly surprised. “Thank you, my teacher. This is one of my favourite fillings.”

And lo and behold, all of Byleth’s struggle over the past day comes to a calm ending as Edelgard takes a grateful bite of the pastry-that-is-not-a-sweet-bun, and grins.

* * *

Sothis hasn’t spoken since mass. 

She’s usually a constant presence in Byleth’s mind—a comforting thought, even. Now, in her silence, Byleth wonders just how badly the mass service must have shaken her.

When she finally returns to her room and locks the door behind her, Sothis is sitting crosslegged on her bed, staring blankly at the window as she strokes the Siamese in her lap. It’s a mindlessly repetitive activity, and that worries Byleth, who has barely ever seen the progenitor god sit still.

She sets down her bag with what’s left of the tea on her desk. Bergamot is expensive to get both in and out of the monastery, but the amount she purchased should be enough for several brews. She makes sure the twine is tied tightly before she tucks the package into the drawer her cats know not to get into. There’s one more thing she’s looking for, and she’s not sure there’s any available in her stash.

Sothis doesn’t even blink when she approaches. _“They immortalized my failures,”_ she whispers, _“the death of my children. I loved them, and I failed to protect them. I failed to protect Fódlan. Why do they sing about the mother who just let her children die?”_

In response, Byleth hands her a Novis taffy. 

She recognizes all the flavours by colour alone; this one, a gentle turquoise, is jadeseed. It’s Sothis’s favourite, and one of the seasonal ones that are rare to find in the warmer months. Sothis reaches out a hesitant hand to take it, the focus finally returning to her haunted gaze. The Siamese rumbles for lack of pats as she unwraps the wax paper in shimmering hands and pops the candy in her mouth.

“You’re not a failure,” Byleth tells her as she chews. It feels strange to be consoling a god, but she’s trained for this—as a teacher, as an advisor, as a beacon of hope. “Fódlan lives on. Your children live on, too, in the blood of the people.”

_“You know as well as I do that it’s not the same.”_

(It really isn’t. Byleth has had to bury her father too many times; she can’t begin to fathom what it’s like for Sothis, a mother who had to say goodbye to her children just as devastatingly.)

 _“And Seiros,”_ Sothis continues, crumpling the wrapper in her fist, _“what happened to her? My beautiful baby girl, and I just… she was so young, and I just left her all alone in the world. I should have been there to see her grow up. I should have been by her side. All of them. I should have walked with them, and all I did was force them to learn to run.”_

(This is when Byleth Eisner, aged twenty-and-change, finally understands how lonely the existence of a god must be. To live out thousands of years alone, to watch one’s loved ones wither and wilt, to watch it happen a million times over and still have the strength to rise each morning, as surely as the sun—

It must be a sad kind of million lives to live.)

“Tell me about them,” she murmurs, and Sothis looks up in surprise. “Don’t tell me what happened to them. Just tell me what they were like. Rhea is the Archbishop now. I want to know what she was like as a young girl.”

Sothis stares at her for a moment before reaching out with one hand, and dropping the wrapper in her waiting palm. _“Seiros was a very moody infant,”_ she says seriously. The Siamese meows insistently at her, and she obliges it with more rubs. _“And quite the temperamental child. She was always playing knights with her older brothers and bossed them around frequently.”_

The monastery carries on as does any other Sunday evening. Locked away in a world of their own, though, a girl and a god commit the names of several long-dead children to memory.

And in the twilight hours, when sentiment overtakes reason, it really does seem, for a blissful moment trapped in time, that the children are still alive and at their mother’s side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a fun game: acquire a cup of tea of your choice. take a shot every time Rhea calls Byleth "dear heart". drain the cup when you realize how creepy it really is  
> there are two (2) factors that led to this chapter's formation: 1) i'm an avid tea drinker, and 2) for academic reasons i, raised non-religious, went to a Catholic high school for all four years of my secondary education, and i helped manage the liturgical choir! the latter has me reading the extracanonical gospels for fun and keeping the Catholic Order of Mass on speed dial, despite the fact that i've since graduated. it's really interesting to see how my theological knowledge plays into the way i write - with the added bonus that my philosophy teacher/choir conductor lost his mind when i told him that i wrote church music for a fic lmao  
> but in all seriousness seeing Byleth in the same shoes as me might as well have been intsys handing me a blowtorch and showing me a three-gallon creme brulee. learning all the religious rituals and seeing the rationale behind them while developing your own sense of morality is... really something. while i may not have a goddess in my head, it's really interesting to learn about theology from an outsider perspective.  
> i also did compose music for both the Lords and Ladies rhyme, as well as the offertory hymn (The Goddess is Our Saving Grace)! however, only the latter is actually transcribed, and i've been told that it is unfit for singing due to its octave jump.  
> please execute me for choir soprano crimes


	11. cross your heart and hope to die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The highs and lows of white magic.

The library of Garreg Mach is never truly closed, but it’s typically empty by around ten at night, save for nights before exams and assignments. A lax night patrol is carried out by the clergy, who are often quite disgruntled to be awoken during the nether hours and don’t bother actually patrolling. There isn’t much to patrol, though; no one’s there at night, save perhaps Linhardt when he falls asleep at one of the desks in the back.

This night, though, no one’s in the back, the library is empty, and all is still. A light flickers through the corridors of bookshelves; the young nun who bears the candle, having had her duty shoved to her by her older sisters in the cloister, takes only a sweeping glance before scurrying her skirts back to bed. It is far too late at night, after all, for anyone to be around and about.

Except it isn’t.

Manuela stumbles out of a hallway, looking completely and utterly bedraggled. Not drunk, mind you—she’s gotten better at not drinking on school nights, but she’s still as disheveled as one can get from waking up in the middle of the night, realizing one doesn’t have a lesson plan, and running to the library in nothing but a shift. “Where are the tomes,” she gasps, rifling through the shelves desperately. “Oh, Seiros above—”

Her eyes widen as her gaze lands on a huge leather-bound grimoire. “The Archanean Hex Primer,” she whispers, practically ripping it off the shelf. “There must be sigil formatting in there.”

She flips violently through the pages, barely glossing over the text before moving on. “No, no, no—” she flips, and grins. “Yes! That’s exactly it!” She runs her fingers greedily over the embossed sigil in the middle of the page, feeling all the divots of the print. Her face falls as she runs over a disjointed part of the design. “Huh. That’s supposed to be connected, isn’t it—”

The grimoire hums under her fingertips, and the library blooms with light.

* * *

“Change of plans,” Byleth announces when she opens the door to her nine o’clock class. “I lied about bringing in paint. We’ll continue with accuracy training next week.” A sigh of relief collides with a groan; while the paint spars have been doing _wonders_ for everyone’s form, not everyone is so enthusiastic about washing it out. “I’m sure all of you heard the thaumatic boom in the night, and I’m absolutely certain you’ve all heard the rumours. Professor Casagranda is fine, and is recovering quickly.”

Dorothea’s hand shoots up immediately. “If you don’t mind me asking, Professor,” she says, not even waiting to be called on, “what happened?”

“Lesson planning past midnight is never a good idea,” Byleth sighs. “Professor Casagranda’s intention was to find example spells so she could teach you all magic absorption theory and magic dispersion theory. She’s asked me to teach a few of those lessons in her stead.” She looks at Manuela’s stack of notes, which she’s brought along for the day. “Now, we’ve established already that the mathematical side of magical absorption theory is not my strong suit, so, with their permission, I’d like to call upon Miss Dominic and Miss von Martritz to help explain it to the class.”

In an instant, everyone is staring at Annette and Mercedes, who exchange a panicked glance at each other. “You’d trust us to do that, Professor?” Annette says, eyes wide as her hand naturally finds Mercedes’s and immediately grips on tightly. “Neither of us have taught before.”

Byleth shrugs. “Like I said. With your permission. But both of you are graduates of the Royal School of Sorcery, and I believe you could teach the theoretical aspects of magic better than I ever could.” She raises an eyebrow at Mercedes, who smiles sweetly and ducks her gaze into her lap. “And from what I’ve heard, Miss von Martritz certainly deserves a hand for the extracurricular tutoring she’s been doing for her classmates. Three thumps, everyone.”

The class joins in, and once the thumps are over Caspar gets a “ANNETTE! MERCEDES!” chant going among them. Byleth feels the corners of her mouth turn up as Annette blushes from all the attention, and she and Mercedes leave their seats to take their place at the blackboard. “If you need chalk, here’s some,” she says, digging through her pockets and coming up with a few chunks.

Mercedes takes a piece of chalk, but Annette is a bit more hesitant. “I’ll draw the diagram that Madame Lisbet showed us,” Mercedes says soothingly, “and you can explain. Is that okay?”

“Yeah.” In an instant, it’s like Annette has changed; her confidence has risen to the maximum, and in her Byleth sees the Annette who is twenty-one and has taken on the world herself. “Alrighty! Professor, you can sit down if you want, this might take a while to explain.”

Byleth looks around, decides that chairs are overrated, and sits crosslegged on her desk with her jacket tucked over her lap. A few of her students giggle, but she’s too transfixed on the pair of human silhouettes that Mercedes has sketched out to really notice anything else.

“Magic runs through your body naturally,” Annette begins to explain, “and it naturally splits into two streams: offensive, and defensive. Your defensive magic, or shielding magic, typically takes up about forty percent of your natural magic. The exact spread can be determined through several tests, but just to give you an example, my ratio is about sixty-four to thirty-six casting to shielding magic.”

“Mine is fifty-three to forty-seven,” Mercedes adds helpfully. “These numbers aren’t very helpful on the battlefield, but they can be useful in determining where magic tends to accumulate in your body.”

Lysithea raises her hand. “Isn’t this the Noa theorem,” she says, and tacks on “Professor Dominic” afterwards, almost like an afterthought.

Annette blushes. “Yeah, the Noa theorem is used to calculate your magic spread once you’ve done some testing,” she says. “It’s not accurate a hundred percent of the time, though. While we were at the School of Sorcery, there was a lot of debate among thaumaturgy scholars as to how reliable it really is. The accuracy goes up the more times you test it, but…” She flaps an errant hand. “Sorry about that. Let me get back on topic.

“Shielding magic creates a field around your body to protect you from magical harm. This field emanates from your heart, so naturally your torso area is going to be a bit more shielded since that’s closest to where the magic comes from.” She pats her abdomen and her chest as if to demonstrate, as Mercedes draws a little heart on the silhouette where the actual heart would be. “Like, uh, _my esteemed colleague_ Mercedes has mentioned, shielding magic does tend to accumulate in certain areas outside of the torso area. The good thing is that you can easily identify these areas and use them to your advantage in a magical fight!”

As though preparing to demonstrate, Annette rolls her shoulders and arches her back out. “Alrighty,” she says, opening her arms wide. “Mercie, will you do the honours?”

It’s only then that Byleth notices the open tome in Mercedes’s free hand, and the way she casts the spell with only a pinky finger as so to not cause major physical harm. The spell hits Annette in a thin beam of silvery-white, harmless but still enough to make her flinch ever so slightly as the spark of magic skitters over her body and lights up where her shielding magic has conglomerated the most. Just as predicted, it blooms out over her chest before spreading. There’s a lot over her forearms, Byleth notes, and a fair amount across her back as well. It lines up with her tendency to curl in on herself when she gets hit with magic.

“It tingles a bit, like it might when you get hit with a Nosferatu,” Annette says, shaking her limbs out as the glow dispels. “But the Illuminos spell itself is entirely harmless, and the discomfort passes in an instant.”

From the back of the room, Raphael raises his hand. “Professor Dominic,” he says, clearly taking one out of Lysithea’s book, “you said you have to cast it a bunch of times to be more certain, right? Won’t that use up a bunch of tomes?”

“Well, my copy’s embossed, so it’ll be a bit longer before this wears out,” Mercedes explains. “Beyond that, there is actually a very interesting solution that mage scholars have come up with for the problem of needing many copies.”

“Doing the Illuminos spell once is a walk in the park,” Annette continues. “Doing it thirty times in a row is more than a little exhausting, and you can’t really control the intensity each time so you could get some really weird outliers. To standardize it, and make the process a little less harsh on mages, the spell was standardized into a staff, which makes it easier to channel and less prone to fading out. Until the magic friction rubs the engraving to nothing, you can reuse that staff over and over and over.”

Byleth raises an eyebrow. “Is that why Professor Casagranda left me the key to the storage room,” she says. _“Huh.”_

“Yeah, that’s probably why,” Annette giggles. “Oh! One last thing, something really important to the magic absorption theory thing.” Her expression turns somber in a second, as she gingerly places her hand over her heart. “Even though your heart is the centre from which your magic field emerges, it’s also completely unshielded itself. Getting hit in the heart with a spell would be like having _no_ magical resistance _at all._ Mercie, can you cast it again?”

She does, and this time, the class watches with a held breath as the silver glow completely skips over Annette’s heart, an oasis of dark uniform fabric amidst the shimmering light. “You always, _always_ want to be protecting your heart,” Annette says, shaking her limbs out again. “If someone casts directly at your heart, it would be like swinging a sword at a bound target, or shooting a target at point-blank range.”

Mercedes doesn’t add anything, but she does close her tome to tuck it under her arm, and clasps her hands together in prayer. _Memories of an incident._ Byleth figures it’s about time to break the silence, and slips off the desk.

“Everyone, can we just get a round of applause for our two brave… assistant professors?” she says. “Miss Dominic and Miss von Martritz, you’ve done a spectacular job here, and I commend you both greatly for your diligence.”

The class breaks into applause, and all the gloom is lifted in a second as Annette and Mercedes look at each other, laugh, and share a heartfelt hug. “I’m proud of both of you,” Byleth tells them. “I’ll make a note of giving you both some well-deserved performance points.”

As they return to their seats, Byleth looks over the diagram on the board. The two little silhouettes, one with two pigtails in loops and the other with long hair over her shoulder, clearly represent Annette and Mercedes respectively. She opts not to erase it for now. “We’re going to take a class trip,” she announces, “to the storage room. Actually, we’re going to stop by my room first, because I forgot to bring the key.” This gets a round of laughter out of the class. “We’ll acquire some staves, and then we will go into the courtyard and form groups of three. One of you will cast the spell, one of you will stand there and glow like a lit candle, and one of you will take the necessary notes. After you’ve gotten enough trials, you’ll switch. For tonight’s homework, you’ll calculate your own shielding magic distributions using the Noa theorem.” She gives the room a final sweeping look. “All clear?”

“Then, let’s go.”

* * *

It’s easy for Byleth to patrol the groups of casting students, observing how they work together. Marianne’s suggestion for Bernadetta to brace herself against the wall when the spell hits seems to have worked out, and their group is blazing through in record time. Even the less magically inclined students have taken to the staves easily, which goes to show just how well-designed the spell is.

It’s also incredibly interesting to see where everyone’s high shielding points are. Lorenz has an impressive amount of shielding across his face, which he claims is thanks to the attention he’s paid to his skin. Sylvain’s shoulder blades light up in striking detail, contrasting against his uniform like valleys and mountains. Caspar looks a little dejected when none of his fields turn up very strong, but makes a promise with Ashe to train until they get stronger.

Byleth is so, so glad that she put them all in a single class and made them get along.

“Is everything alright here?” she asks as she approaches Edelgard, Hubert and Ignatz. The last bit of glow on Hubert (silver dappled across his shoulders and collarbones) fades, and he nods to Ignatz, who is sitting in the shade with a notebook in his lap. “Just finishing up another trial?”

“We’ve just finished Hubert’s set,” Edelgard says, handing the staff to Hubert as they trade places. “And we’re just about to start mine.”

At first, when the Illuminos spell hits, Byleth can’t tell what’s wrong. The glow spreads over Edelgard’s body, just like any of her peers, and begins to highlight her magical deposits. It’s only when Ignatz starts to hold up his pen as a perspective reference that she realizes what’s going on. 

“Miss von Hresvelg,” she calls, “are you aware that your magical fields are _shifting?”_

Edelgard looks down, and indeed, it’s as though the light of the Illuminos spell is dancing across her body constantly, and not in the way that natural magic should flow. “I… was not aware of this, Professor,” she admits, exchanging a panicked glance with Hubert. “Could it be an anomaly?”

Byleth purses her lips. “Let me get Miss von Martritz,” she says. “I can’t say I’ve seen this before, ever.”

Mercedes’s group is already done; Sylvain and Hilda are chatting up a storm when Byleth comes to collect her. “Miss von Hresvelg’s shielding fields are constantly shifting.”

“Oh, we can address that” Mercedes says, still bright and unassuming as she unhooks the staff from her belt. “It could be a statistical outlier, or the staff’s calibration could be off. Let me see what we can do.”

Hubert steps aside when she arrives. “I’m going to cast the spell again with a different staff,” she explains, “just in case the sigil has worn out on yours. Lady Edelgard, would you mind terribly…?”

Edelgard stands with her arms spread out, and Mercedes casts the Illuminos spell again. Sure enough, the silver glow continues to shift across her body like fireflies, flittering everywhere except over her heart. “That is… still okay,” Mercedes says. “Sometimes your fields shift when your body is undergoing natural changes—for example, during your monthly cycles. It may also occur as a result of illness.” She beams. “I’m sure they’ll settle in no time.”

For her part, Edelgard still looks shocked, frozen in place with one hand over her heart. Hubert reacts first, turning to Byleth swiftly as though to divert attention to himself. “Professor, what of the calculations for tonight’s homework?”

Byleth waves it off. “Seeing as Miss von Hresvelg’s fields are currently unable to be calculated for the time being, we can use mine instead.” She shucks off her jacket and takes Edelgard’s place across from Mercedes. “It’ll be useful for me to figure out my own fields, anyways.”

She’s been on the receiving end of plenty of offensive spells over the years and the lives she’s lived, but this is the first time she’s had the Illuminos spell cast on her. It doesn’t quite prickle like the pins of light that Aura hits with, but it’s not the enveloping, sluggish drain of Nosferatu either. The Illuminos spell trickles across her body like growing frost, and just as Annette said, it’s gone in an instant.

This is when Byleth finally notices everyone staring openly at her—and not just this group, either. The whole class seems to have frozen in their activities, and are gathered around to watch in transfixed silence. “Hubert,” Mercedes says, voice shaking, “may I borrow your staff and try that again?”

He hands it over wordlessly, and she takes it. “Professor, can you shake the spell off?” she asks. “I think something went wrong a little bit, so we’re going to try again with another staff.”

There’s no harm in that, so Byleth kicks and flails until the glow seems to have faded. “I’ll cast now,” Mercedes says, and the tingling feeling follows in a second, spreading across her body in a wave. “Oh, Goddess above, I’ve _never_ seen that before.”

Byleth looks down at herself, scans the silver spots. She’s got some really strong shielding across her forearms, which is to be expected considering how often she braces herself from magical attacks with them. There’s a lot more shielding across her torso than expected, which must mean that her fields are incredibly strong across the chest and right around her heart—

She stops. The silver glow is a single, continuous splash all across her chest, and there’s no telltale void where her heart is, where her heart _should_ be. The magic energy feels like ice on her bare skin as she lifts a hand to her chest and sweeps the remnants of the spell away, as though brushing off the year’s first snowfall.

“Well, you must be one of the lucky ones, Teach,” Claude finally says, daring to break the silence.

“Huh.”

She presses her palm against the flat of her breast, and finds nothing but the pulse in her hand. She’s always known she was born without a heartbeat; why should it feel so empty now, when her body is so full of magic?

Instead of a heartbeat, she finds the loveless laughter of a fell star.

* * *

“I’m glad you’re able to join me today, Professor,” Dimitri tells her as they bring the training weapons to the courtyard. She’s only got a few spears this time, because Dimitri, ever the gentleman, insisted on bringing the rest. “I do hope you’re feeling better after this morning’s, er, lesson mishaps.”

“Thank you for your concern, Mr. Blaiddyd. I think I’ll be just fine.” She gives him a wry look as they fall into single file to avoid incoming hallway traffic. “Are _you_ feeling alright, and would you like me to take some of those weapons?”

Dimitri beams at her. “I’m alright, Professor. I daresay I could carry the spears you’ve got, too, and it wouldn’t be any more of a hassle.” At her frown, he amends it with a quick “I jest, I jest. There’s a lesson to be learned in not overexerting oneself, I suppose.”

“You’re learning.”

They push the door to the courtyard open, and immediately a stream of laughing children rushes to meet them, followed by several tired clergy members. “Hey, hey!” Dimitri laughs, dropping his barrel of weapons to dole out hugs instead. “Okay, come on now, I’ve got to get out of this doorway first if we want to do any training.”

The kids dissipate in giggles, letting Byleth and Dimitri step through with their training weapons. It’s mostly the younger ones here today; Byleth notes with only mild disappointment that Cyril is nowhere to be found. Perhaps he’s not quite trusting of her, stranger as she is. She honestly wouldn’t blame him if he were.

The monastery is a safe place for these children to be, but it’s far from a home. Under the cruel, caring eye of the Church, they’ll be forced to find solace in what is given to them. Perhaps they’ll build a family of each other, but Fódlan is not a land for the sentimental. The memories they’ll make here will be good, but they won’t be enough to draw them back when they’re older.

Maybe that applies to Dimitri, too. In the end, he’s just as much a war orphan as these children are; the only thing separating him from them is perhaps the added burden of age and a crown. Byleth remembers meeting him in the darkest corner of the Goddess Tower, the weight of his nightmares turning his face gaunt. Maybe that’s why she’s here, so that she never has to see him so cold and broken again.

“This is Professor Eisner,” he’s saying to the children as she approaches. “She’s the best swordfighter I’ve ever met.”

“Even better than you?” a girl asks skeptically.

 _“Far_ better than me,” Dimitri assures her. “She’s my combat teacher. I can’t begin to count how many times she’s knocked me on my feet, or how many lessons I’ve learned from her because of it. I know all of you are really going to enjoy her teaching.”

They all turn to her expectantly. Byleth, for her part, gives a little wave. “Hello.”

The children stare at her for barely half a second before all promptly swarming Dimitri again, each yelling something at him. “Woah, woah! What’s with all this?”

“She’s scary,” one of the younger boys says. “And she doesn’t smile.”

It’s true, and by the way Dimitri’s eyes widen Byleth knows that she’s found her shortcoming. She’s only ever taught students his age, after all—she’s never worked with small children. She knows she doesn’t emote very much, and that must come off as disapproving, or worse yet, displeased. Suddenly, she wonders if it’s too late to back out.

But no, there’s no room for regret. This is her time to talk to Dimitri, and besides, without her permission he wouldn’t be able to reserve the courtyard or the training weapons to work with. It wouldn’t be fair of her to arrange a weekly chat with Edelgard and Claude, and not one with him.

Fortunately, Dimitri already has a story to tell the kids. “Oh, her smiles are prized among us!” he mock-gasps. “She only smiles when she is satisfied with our training, and it is a sight to behold!” He picks up one of the children and spins her around, getting squeals of glee for his efforts. “Why, her smile must be one of the natural wonders of the world, for all it is rare and glorious!” He sets the little girl down and squats to meet the eyes of the children. “So, who wants to make Professor Eisner smile?”

And just like that, the tides have turned. The children start to cheer, and Dimitri smiles and starts handing out weapons. Some of the youngest ones (they can’t be older than five, Byleth realizes in mute horror) are too small to wield anything larger than wooden daggers and tomahawks, while the older ones pick with glee. They’re all pieces of something larger, each helping the others without being prompted to.

She’s so transfixed on watching the children that she doesn’t notice Dimitri approaching with a wooden training sword in hand. “I know you have your own sword, Professor,” he says, offering to her, “but I felt as though it might be better for all of us to use the wooden weapons this time around.”

“Thank you, Mr. Blaiddyd,” she says. The grip of the sword is terribly rough, and she’s certain she’ll get a splinter or two out of it, but it’s nothing she hasn’t faced before. “I was thinking of showing my actual sword to the children before they go, as a treat.”

The children have already arranged themselves in rows, with the shortest ones towards the front of the group. Byleth flicks her wrist and twirls her sword around, getting a wave of _oohs_ and _ahs._ “Let’s start with some footwork,” she says, turning her back to the group. “Everyone, spread out a bit. I don’t want any of you to get hurt. Follow what I do.”

She lunges out with her right foot, and in a comically loud voice, yells “HAH!” as she jabs forward with the sword. A few small voices echo her as she brings her stance back together. “Now, let’s see Mr. Blaiddyd do it,” she says, throwing a glance at Dimitri.

He nods, readies his spear, and lunges, bellowing a deep “HAH” from the bottom of his stomach. A few of the children laugh in response, and Byleth feels her confidence rise. “Just like that,” she says. “Performance points for a good yell, Mr. Blaiddyd.” She throws a look over her shoulder, and finds the courtyard filled with smiling faces. “Now, let’s do that altogether. Ready?”

A chorus of little voices yelling “HAH!” splits the afternoon air, and Byleth swears she hears the muffled giggles of the supervising clergy in response.

“Good job, everyone,” she says. “We’re going to make that move as strong as we can, so let’s do it five more times, and then we’ll switch to lunging to the left, alright?” When the children yell their assent, she has to honestly suppress the urge to smile. “And just to make it very clear, I want to hear _all_ of you. You can’t be strong without a good war cry.”

The afternoon passes thus, in war cries and small scrapes and basic footwork. Byleth catches more leaping, giggling children than she cares to admit, and bandages the scrapes and kisses them away when prompted, and for that hour the world revolves around the lively little courtyard at the heart of Garreg Mach. She draws the steel blade at her side and gets a lot of little hands lining up to run down the fuller, and pretends to take down Dimitri in a pale mimicry of a spar, much to the delight of the children.

And beyond it all, Byleth realizes that she _can_ teach the little ones too. Sure, she seems scary, but it’s so much easier than she thought to just clutch her chest and pretend to faint away when a giggling child taps her with a tomahawk. Over the course of the hour, Byleth finds herself genuinely smiling, and it fills her unbeating heart with some kind of joy she didn’t realize she could find.

By the time the children are being called away, she’s knelt in the dust in the courtyard, receiving an endless stream of hugs. They’re all so small, and yet they’re so strong and love so fiercely. She gives one final high-five to one of the younger boys, and then the courtyard is silent, and she’s got dust all over her tights and her jacket.

Dimitri has collected all the training weapons, and has returned them to the barrel. “I’ll take it this time,” she tells him, and he looks genuinely surprised when she’s able to lift it all. “You really do underestimate yourself as an instructor.”

“Thank you, Professor,” he tells her abashedly, “but I’m really nothing compared to you.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t sell yourself short, Mr. Blaiddyd. As you might have figured, I have no experience teaching young children. Your ability to connect with them—to guide them—that is a hallmark of not just a good teacher, but a good leader. Well done.”

Dimitri laughs, and tries (rather unsuccessfully) to hide his blush. “Well, I learned from the best.”

He takes a few of the polearms, and they leave the courtyard behind to put the weapons away. “I wasn’t aware you were such a composer of prose,” Byleth remarks. “Though, I must admit that you are laying the hyperbole on a bit too strong. Is my smile truly so coveted?”

To her surprise, Dimitri actually nods. “Among my peers and I, it’s considered… quite the honour to see you smile,” he admits. “We don’t speak of it, but it does feel like something we must strive to earn, like a symbol of your approval of sorts.”

“Huh.” She raises an eyebrow. “Is it really so brilliant that it can be considered a natural wonder of the world, as you so kindly put it?”

Whatever Dimitri’s about to say is promptly interrupted by one of the lance shafts shattering in his hand. The segment with the wooden spearhead falls to the floor, where it immediately smashes into two pieces. “Um,” says Dimitri, with one gloved hand full of splinters, “I am _so_ sorry, Professor. Oh, Goddess, I am so sorry.”

“No worries. They’re just practice weapons.” She drops the barrel for a second to pick up the fallen spearhead. “How about we dispose of this accordingly first, and then we’ll put the rest of these away and grab a bite from the mess hall?”

“That sounds like a wonderful plan, Professor.”

* * *

Manuela knows the familiar feeling of a damp towel over her forehead isn’t one of the matrons at work. The clergy are kind, but she’s been in the infirmary more times than she cares to admit, and they’ve learned to just take their leave of her. No, this is someone with much more understanding, much more empathy.

She opens her eyes, and is immediately hushed into closing them again. “No, it’s alright,” Dorothea says, voice barely a whisper. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Dorothea,” Manuela croaks, “you shouldn’t have to do this.”

“I do it because I choose to, Manuela.”

Somehow, that’s the worst blow of all. Sweet Dorothea, who she left behind at the Mittelfrank, who took all her roles and protected the women at the opera in her stead and _still_ found the time and the strength to make it into the Officers Academy, is laying damp towels on her head because she failed again. Because she let her indulgences get ahead of her duties, again. Because she was an awful person before she ever was an awful teacher.

It’s humbling, to say the least.

“How were your lessons today?” she asks, because it’s the least she can do, asking after her junior. “Did Professor Eisner start teaching magic?”

Dorothea laughs. Despite the pounding in Manuela’s head, the sound is soothing and familiar. “She did. Professor Pronislav has stepped in for the time being as our house professor, but Professor Eisner taught us magic absorption theory today.” She looks wistful for a heartbeat. “It was _interesting,_ to say the least.”

Manuela sighs. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there,” she says quietly. “I’m honestly ashamed of myself as your house professor. I don’t plan my lessons and I squander my time away. I don’t deserve my station, and I certainly don’t deserve you..”

“This is a house of learning,” Dorothea reminds her softly. “Not just for me, but for you too. We can take this one step at a time.”

 _One step at a time._ “That sounds like something I can do. Or at least something I can try.”

Dorothea smiles. She’s humming something; Manuela lets her weary head rest, and realizes that it’s the part of Princess Elisabeth in the opera _Revelation_ —the first part Dorothea ever sang at the Mittelfrank.

She lets herself drift into sleep on the song of a healer of legend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good day friends! i hope you are doing okay during this sweltering season, and if for some blessed reason you live somewhere that is not melt-your-face-off hot, know that i envy you greatly  
> i know there aren't canonically tomes and staves ingame, but i got extremely far theorizing the boundaries of a hypothetical magic system that works with or without tomes and staves, so we're still good lmao. offensive magic is its own can of worms that i will open at another time, hopefully. the magic in three houses is very visual-based (in the sense of the sigils generated) and while i may know nothing about making sigils i do know exactly how to vaguely describe them  
> also fun fact about working with small children: you can fool them into doing anything if you act dumb enough. trust me on this one i worked with kindergarteners once a week for three years i am a _professional_ at wrangling small children
> 
> EDIT: i forgot to mention this, but you can calculate any character's ratio of casting to shielding magic with a bit of simple math! add their maximum Mag and Res stats (you can get these from the wiki) together to get a number for total magic. from there, you can divide the Mag and Res by total magic to get the percentage that they each occupy, which are casting and shielding magic respectively.  
> eg. Annette's total magic → 73 (Mag) + 41 (Res) = 114  
> casting magic = 73 ÷ 114 = 64%  
> shielding magic = 41 ÷ 114 = 36% (rounded)


	12. on the ball (at all times)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Go long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please don't do anything that happens in this chapter i'm literally begging you i have NOT balanced this sport yet

When office hours get too stuffy and the cats get bored of staying with her, Byleth puts away the last of her papers, locks her door, and goes for a walk. Fódlan is really just starting to warm up in the Harpstring Moon, and life returns to the land in the most beautiful ways in the evenings. The sunsets light the monastery up in brilliant golds and vermillions, leaving deep shadows across the ancient ivy-covered walls.

She likes to check the market on evenings like this, even though most of the time no one is there. The salesfolk know that the students have classes on weekdays, and don’t usually set up their stands until Friday afternoon. Sometimes, if she’s lucky, she’ll catch Trader Anna or the spice trader just as they’re packing up for the day.

Some days, like today, she’s not quite as lucky. As she’s passing through the yard where the traders usually set up shop, the only people in sight are chattering students and bustling clergy members. The wind sweeps through in a haze of lavender and orange sunset, and Byleth stares over the monastery walls into the countryside below. Garreg Mach really sits in the middle of some of the most beautiful land in Fódlan, enjoying both the fertile land of the Oghma Mountains and the sprawling hills and forests of the Adrestian Empire. Her hair billows across her face, streaming into the fabric of her jacket and making it hard to tell where she ends and the wind begins.

She watches the shadows shift over the forest below until the wind starts to bite at her exposed skin, and then she turns back. There aren’t many people left at this hour, save for the students still milling around, but there is a familiar face that she hasn’t seen in a while.

Er, familiar helmet, she supposes.

“Greetings, Professor!” the gatekeeper tells her, dutifully attending his post. “Nothing to report. How’s your day been?”

“Just fine.” No need to mention the ache in her bones from all of today’s spars. “And you?”

“I’m doing just dandy!” The gatekeeper beams at her. He seems so vibrantly young, and yet there’s no way he can be younger than her if she’s, to quote one very disgruntled Seteth, “the youngest staff member at the monastery”. Then again, looks can be deceiving, and she’s certainly learned that the hard way. “I hope you’re settling in well here at the monastery.”

“That I am, thank you.”

“Garreg Mach may seem quiet now,” he says, “but once it gets warmer, the students do all sorts of things in the evenings. I’ve only been here for four years, and the wonders I’ve seen!” Under the brim of his helmet, his smile turns jubilant. “In the summer of 1178, some of the students formed a choir, and practiced every day till sunset for a whole month. Last Blue Sea Moon, some of the magically-inclined students were able to convince the Archbishop to have a convention of mages right here at the monastery! It’s incredible what the students have done when they put their minds to it.”

“It sure is,” Byleth muses, thinking not of mage conventions and student choirs but of war-torn futures and peaceful dawns.

Another foot soldier approaches with a lantern, though it really still isn’t very dark outside. “Professor Eisner,” he says, giving her a polite (though unnecessary) bow before turning to the gatekeeper. “Rudolf. Your shift’s over.”

“Thank you.” The gatekeeper nods curtly at his replacement, and grins at Byleth. “Well, then, I wish you a good night, Professor. I’m off to the dining hall to acquire my supper.”

“I’ll accompany you, then.” It just seems like a nice thing to do, even though she’s not nearly as familiar with the gatekeeper in this timeline yet. “Maybe I’ll grab a fruit along the way.”

As they walk, Byleth ruminates over the name that she now know belongs to the gatekeeper. “Rudolf,” she finally says, getting his attention in an instant, “like the ruling dynasty of Rigel?”

He laughs out loud. “A different spelling,” he tells her. “Aw, shucks, I suppose I never introduced myself to you, Professor.” He holds out a gloved hand. “The name’s Alfred Rudolph. Rudy to friends. Pleased to make your introduction.”

She shakes his hand once, professionally. “Byleth Eisner. Uh, Byleth to friends.” She shrugs. “Anything rolls with me, to be honest.”

Alfred (Rudy?) grins at her. “Actually, it’s funny that you should mention the ruling dynasty of Rigel,” he admits, “since they’re all overseas and all that. But since you noticed…” He dips his head down, and for a moment Byleth panics as metal shifts, but then the helmet and the chain mail underneath slide off in a smooth pile into Rudy’s hands, revealing mossy hair and impish eyes to match. “When I was a kid, my friends always said I was a dead ringer for the king of Valentia.”

“I’d believe it,” Byleth tells him.

“Really?” He tints the slightest pink, face flushed in the sunset. “Anyways, I don’t think we look all that alike. Or maybe that’s because I’ve only seen one portrait of him ever. Maybe if I had more to reference.”

“Perhaps.”

They part ways in the mess hall, with Rudy joining his fellow soldiers for dinner and Byleth grabbing an apple to go. It’s still beautiful outside—the sun’s lit up in crimson now, and the faraway skies are beginning to fade to navy blue. If she could only capture these colours forever instead of chasing them through the windows in the hallways of the monastery, never managing to grab onto the fleeting moments. She pushes open a door into the courtyard, almost in a trance, and melts into a sunset sky.

“Heads up, Professor!”

Presently, Byleth realizes that something vaguely spherical is hurtling towards her. With lightning-fast reflexes, she shoves the apple in her pocket and manages to catch the ball without losing any of her fingers or her teeth. “What,” she says, flabbergasted at the magic-charred hide in her hands, “is happening.”

A flock of giggles, and then Raphael comes running up. “Sorry about that, Professor,” he says abashedly, taking the ball as she gently lobs it to him. “I didn’t realize you weren’t one of our teammates.”

“Teammates?” Upon further inspection, a group of Golden Deer are using this courtyard to play some sort of sport. _So Rudy was right about the students doing things in the evenings during the warmer months._ “Oh. What… might I ask, are you playing?”

“Triangle attack,” the students chime, as if this is the most obvious answer in the entire world. Byleth inwardly curses herself for having lived under a rock through four (four!) timelines, and never once learning about the actual cultural norms in Fódlan. She should have learned her lesson with the tea parties. Maybe she needs to sit down with Nibbs, girl to girl, and figure out all this culture stuff.

“You should join us, Teach,” Claude yells from the other side of the courtyard. “We could always use another referee.”

She shakes her head. “I’ve never played,” she admits, much to the apparent surprise of her students, judging by the wave of gasps that follows. “I might sit and watch you all play for a bit, see if I can pick up on the rules.”

“The sun’s setting,” someone points out. “We should continue the game tomorrow, or else we might hit someone else in the face.”

“In that case, let’s pack it up, everyone.” Claude jogs over quickly, grinning as he takes the ball from Raphael. “I can’t believe you’ve never played triangle attack, Teach. _Everyone’s_ played at some point. Even Lysithea.”

“Hey, I don’t spend _all_ my time studying,” Lysithea huffs.

The sky is starting to gleam with starry freckles when they make it out of the labyrinth of hallways and start heading towards the dormitories, mostly because of how many people are trying to explain the rules of triangle attack to Byleth all at once. “Only the defense and goalkeeper players are allowed to use magic,” Leonie says excitedly, so caught up in her explanation that she hasn’t even noticed Jeralt and Alois talking further down the path. “Annette says that Mercedes nearly got scouted for the School of Sorcery’s triangle attack team because she could launch the ball all the way from her goal into another team’s.”

“I would not be surprised,” says Byleth. “It seems like an interesting sport, to be honest. Is there an official rulebook I can consult?”

The Deer look at each other, share a _look,_ and laugh. “Oh, it’s a folk game, really,” Leonie says. “I mean, I bet there’s an official set of rules made by some grumpy old men somewhere, but every village and town has their own way of playing. Back home in Sauin we played with ten-player teams. It’s really weird not having two goalies and four defense, I’ll tell you that!”

"It’s definitely a game that changes regionally,” Claude confirms. “I mean, colloquially in Leicester a lot of us grew up calling it boomball, which they don’t call it in other parts of Fódlan.”

Byleth raises an eyebrow. "Boomball?"

"Boomball," he says. "Watch this."

He lobs it at Lysithea. She doesn't even look up as she raises her hand and blasts it down the path with a concentrated blast of pure magic energy, nailing Alois in the chestplate with a clang. The ball flies several storeys into the air, scattering birds from the nearby trees, before beginning its tragic descent to clonk Alois upside the head, bounce off and land squarely in Jeralt's amused grip.

"Fantastic," Byleth says, suddenly deciding she doesn't want to play anymore.

* * *

“Is Alois going to be okay?”

“He’s suffered worse,” Jeralt mutters. “Though I gotta hand it to you, that girl had quite the blast. Could take down ten men twice her size, and not break a sweat.”

“Sounds about right for Lysithea.”

Dinner, for once, is actually warm when they have it together; Byleth doesn’t usually get to see her father in the evenings until he’s back from his missions, and even then they’re often limited to just an hour or so of chatter. She makes it a point to stay up and talk to him in the few chances that she gets to, knowing fully well that she could lose him again.

But he’s back early this time—earlier than normal anyhow, since it’s only around eight in the evening. They’ve managed to catch the last of the warm food before the dining hall closed, and are now digging into rich Daphnel stew and fresh rye bread. There are little burnt bits from scraping the bottom of the pot, and all the duck meat is in dense shreds, but it’s warm and filling.

It’s comforting to be eating so simple. Byleth never really got used to the fancier monastery foods, and even now the richer ones make her stomach upset. Returning to her mercenary roots, of eating foods that are easily made on the go, brings her back to a bliss of a simpler time, before the burden of three crowns fell on her.

It’s also comforting to just be talking to her father again. Any time she gets to spend with him is precious, after all.

“Dad,” she says, breaking the silence, “have you ever played triangle attack?”

He stops to stare at her, dropping his spoon back into the bowl. “That has got to be,” he says, “the first time you’ve called me dad.”

“Is it?” She shrugs. “I didn’t realize.”

“Feels weird, but hey, whatever floats your boat.” He sighs, ripping up a piece of bread and dunking it into the stew. “Yes, I have played triangle attack. I grew up in Fhirdiad, everyone and their mother played triangle attack.”

This time, she’s the one who has to stop and stare. “You’re from Fhirdiad,” she says incredulously. “I never knew that.”

“I served in the army of King Alexandre Blaiddyd,” he says as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. Thankfully, no one else is in the dining hall, so no one can hear his (unnaturally nonchalant) statement and ponder, _hey, isn’t the_ grandson _of King Alexandre Blaiddyd attending this monastery, and almost old enough to succeed the throne?_ “Were your students playing triangle attack earlier in the yard?”

She nods.

They continue eating in silence. The question lingers as Byleth tries to figure out how to ask it. There’s no shame in asking for help, especially from her own father, and she’s well aware of it.

It just feels like an odd question to ask.

She sets down the empty bowl, and pops the last bite of bread in her mouth. It’s a bit stale, although she figures it’s because the rest of her bread spent so long soaking in the stew. It still tastes good, though, all earthy and slightly sweet just as rye bread should be. She chews until it feels like the rye has lost all sense of texture, and then until reality feels like it’s lost its texture too.

“Can you teach me how to play?”

Her father smiles. “Anyday, kid.”

* * *

> **_Triangle attack_ ** _(also known colloquially as boomball, three-all and triple eights among others) is a widely played sport in Fódlan. Though not played in any official teams, it is a widespread sport and enjoyed by those of all ages. Legends of its creation can be traced back to the Ten Elites, though most historians agree that it was most likely created circa Imperial year 770, owing to the unnaturally long summer of that year. Students of the Officers Academy at Garreg Mach Monastery devised the game to pass time, creating a lasting tradition that would spread across Fódlan in succeeding centuries._
> 
> _Unlike most sports, triangle attack (much like its name suggests) has three teams of eight players facing off each other for the most points. Each team is given a sector of a triangular field, with a goal placed at the vertex of the sector. The eight players—three defense players, four offensive players and a goalie—are situated across the field, with the objective of landing the ball in either of the opposing teams’ goals. Ten “rounds” are played, wherein a round lasts until a team scores. Should the score be split between two teams, an additional eleventh round (sometimes called the sunset round) may be played._
> 
> _There is no “official” version of the rules due to its widespread play and many folk variations. Rumours of an official ruleset left behind by the Officers Academy graduating class of 770 have yet to be proven. The most commonly played version, however, employs a number of rules limiting magic use, as well as movement._
> 
> _—excerpt from_ **_Fódlan: A Divided Cultural History_ ** _by Miriam Rowe, 1093._

* * *

“I do hope I’ve acquired the right ball for this,” Byleth says as she opens the door. It does look somewhat similar to the ball she caught the other day. Then again, she asked Catherine for a “suitable ball for triangle attack”, and got a laugh and found the ball at her door in the morning. “Good morning, everyone. We’re going to be playing triangle attack today.”

To their credit, the class only takes a fraction of a second to go ballistic. Papers go flying across the room, a stray spell singes past the base of her ear, and one of the boys hits an operatic high C that would put Manuela to shame. She winces. “Okay, so no triangle attack…?”

“Professor Eisner,” Edelgard says, looking utterly flustered by the chaos, “it’s almost entirely out of the question. Triangle attack is—it’s a _game.”_

Byleth shrugs. “So’s the mock battle,” she says, and Edelgard stares at her in baffled silence. “So’s sparring, really. Please trust me in that I’ve reviewed the rules of this game, and I figured it would be fitting to base a lesson on it.”

“But Teach,” Claude protests, blissfully ignoring the fact that Caspar is practically crawling under his desk to pick up stray papers, “you’ve _never_ played triangle attack before. You said so yourself.”

“We’ll, uh, cross that bridge when we get there.” It’s true, but she figures she’ll pick it up quickly, as she always does, always has to. “I’ll referee for today. That should provide me with plenty of grading material.”

Just like that, the class goes still. It’s a reminder that she’s still inherently their instructor right now, no matter how young she is or how much time she’s spent with them as peers and equals. It shocks her just as much as it shocks them, as the painful divide between “her” and “them” is re-established.

“If today goes well,” she says, trying to break the silence, “then next day we’ll start switching the referee in and out. I want all of you to apply what you’ve learned on the battlefield and in the classroom to this, including the referee—there’s still much to be learned through observation. I can teach you how to swing a sword and how to position an army, but tactics are something you need to develop individually, and according to the situation.” She sets down her book, and takes a look around the class. “Any questions?”

The only one who has the guts to raise their hand, somehow, is Lorenz. “Mr. Gloucester, your question?”

“Pray tell, Professor, what version of the rules are we playing by?”

Byleth looks down at her book. “Well, I’ve been told there are no official rules,” she says, “but I consulted my father, who time and time again is the wisest person I know, and he said that the “standard” rules involved eight players per team, with magic usage limited to defense players and goalies, and two offense players permanently stationed in each of the opposing sectors. Magic is limited only Wind elemental spells, and you may only cast while you have the ball.” She purses her lips as she thinks to the list of rules her father had told her. “Oh, and fixed positions for the defensive players.”

To her amazement, this gets general assent from the students. “That’s about right for how we played it,” Sylvain says, leaning back in his seat with a satisfied grin. “And here I was thinking that we wouldn’t have anyone who played it in the same way.”

“Miriam Rowe considers it a cultural phenomenon,” Byleth affirms, waving her book at the class. “To have a continent so divided, and yet to have a tradition created _before_ said divisions remain constant for several centuries, is simply remarkable.” She shakes her head. “And to think that we’re playing a sport created by our predecessors here at Garreg Mach.”

“Wait, did _students_ invent triangle attack?”

“That’s what the legend says, according to this book.” She closes the book in her palm, sets it neatly on her desk, and shucks off her jacket. “Well? Who’s up to play?”

Her students waste no time in scrambling for the door, and Byleth relishes in the fact that they’re on her side just as much as she’s on theirs.

* * *

The courtyard turns out to be a little small for a full-scale game, as several students inform Byleth dutifully, so she grabs her keys and her jacket and the ball, and shushes them continuously as she leads them out of the classrooms and into what feels like the wilderness. There’s no point in having a massive property for the academy if she can’t use the fields for sports, after all.

And it’s not like it’s disgustingly cold or wet or muddy outside. Late Harpstring Moon is prime planting season, before the rains come in but after the bulk of the cold. As soon as they reach the grassy fields, not the ones regularly trimmed by the monastery staff, Caspar takes a flying leap and sinks into the grass, laughing in sheer exhilaration as Linhardt stands over him with an unamused smile. Spring balances on the delicate precipice of beautiful weather, starting up a small breeze that lifts fallen petals into flight.

It seems like a good day to be playing ball.

“For today’s game, we’ll stick with houses for teams,” Byleth announces to the class, tossing the ball up and down as she speaks. “Decide your offensive and defensive players now. I’ll be setting up the goals.”

Seeing her class split _back_ into their houses is almost jarring, given how they seem to mingle so naturally now. Not a day passes when she doesn’t see Lysithea and Annette chatting before class, or Caspar sitting on Raphael’s desk, or the others all talking among themselves with no barriers. It almost gives her hope for a future where they can all talk out their differences before declaring war on each other.

(almost.)

She draws up the field and lays down the goals between a few wooden weapons driven into the grass. It’s almost certainly uneven, but she can roughly triangulate a centre and stand there with the ball. Her students have already split themselves up into their roles, and if their grins are anything to go by, they’re just as ready to go as she is.

“Is everyone ready?” This is met with yells of assent. “Then let the game begin!”

She throws the ball up into the air, and hightails it for the sidelines before the wave of crashing players can get to her. It’s definitely not safe to be outside the field, either, given there are no real barriers to protect her from flying projectiles and spells, but it’s better than being directly at the site of the chaos.

Petra’s the first to get to the ball, but Leonie’s on her in a second, darting in and out as though to confuse her. Only moments later the centre of the field becomes a mess as everyone tries to get in. Byleth squints, wishes briefly that she’d brought a pair of binoculars, and is about to risk getting closer when Petra throws the ball straight up into the air, and it lands in Edelgard’s waiting hands.

The fight for the ball still isn’t focused on her, and it gives her just enough a window of time to lob across the sector to Caspar. Their teamwork is impressive, and Byleth gets the impression that this is a play they’ve practiced before, the juggling of the ball across sectors of the field so that they can get close enough to score.

But they don’t get close enough, and as Caspar tosses the ball Marianne’s palm lights up with a Wind sigil, and it goes wide into the Lions’ sector where Hilda catches it. “Cover me!” she shrieks, and in what might just be the most beautiful move ever, lobs it upwards before anyone else can do anything and _spikes_ it across the field.

“Got it!” Raphael yells, taking a running leap at the ball. He catches it before it can hit the ground, wrapping his whole body around it, and turns the momentum into a smooth roll across the grass. He gets up and immediately tosses it at Claude, who in turn throws it with startling velocity at the goal, where it’s bound to hit Linhardt right in the face.

It doesn’t. Like a bird in flight, Ingrid knocks it just askew enough for Felix to catch, and from there he proceeds to take his _own_ attempt at scoring. _So this is what it means to have your goal stolen,_ Byleth muses.

Linhardt reacts fast enough to not get hit in the face, though, and catches the ball before it can get in the goal, or worse yet knock _him_ into the goal. “Hubert,” he calls, diverting everyone’s attention in an instant, and then throws it to Dorothea, who charges up a wind spell and blasts it right back across the field towards the Deer.

The ball never wavers long in the Lions’ sector. Byleth remembers Leonie speaking of how Mercedes was offered a spot as the goalie because of how far she could launch the ball, and shudders to think of how that might turn out here. The Lions seem to know this, and are deliberately trying to send the ball _to_ her so that she might take advantage of this. Dimitri gets ahold of the ball, and with all the strength of a hundred men, sends it sailing over everyone else’s heads back into Lion territory.

The ball sails in a clear arc, and as the game shifts in its direction it’s clear that it won’t make the distance to Mercedes. Sylvain, however, does manage to get catch it, and being a defense player and unable to move from his spot, the best he can do is launch it skywards, propelled with magic.

This time, it does land close enough to the goal for Mercedes to catch, and the instant she does chaos erupts; her reputation certainly precedes her. Several of the players on the field scream, and Byleth actively takes a few steps back. “Get ready to go long,” Edelgard yells, crouched like she’s about to jump.

Mercedes, in a moment of brilliant inspiration, turns towards the Eagles’ goal, _fakes her shot,_ and fires her spell in the direction of the Deer. Someone screams Lysithea’s name. From the sidelines, Byleth sees Lysithea’s eyes go wide, her hands rising instinctively to shield herself, and the beginnings of a glowing green sigil starting to light up in her palms before the ball _explodes._

When the dust (and the grass) settles, Lysithea is sitting between the now cracked goalposts, coughing as bits of cotton rag and charred hide shower over her like snow. She seems to be uninjured; the same cannot be said for the field, which now has a noticeable crater of dirt loosely dressed with falling grass and wild weeds. The crater is twice as wide as Lysithea is tall, and nearly as deep.

“Oh, Seiros,” Marianne squeaks, which sums up the situation pretty well. 

Byleth sighs, resigning herself to the fact that her star class didn’t even get through _one round_ of triangle attack without destroying the ball. “Let’s bring it in,” she calls, before running to Lysithea to help her up. “Are you alright, Miss von Ordelia?”

“I think I’m fine, Professor, thank you.” Lysithea offers her an uneasy grin, and all at once Byleth is reminded of her father’s comment: _that girl had quite the blast. Could take down ten men twice her size._ “Sorry about, um, destroying your ball.”

“Wasn’t mine.” The class has gathered around the cater, where the majority of the remnants of the ball remain in a dirt-covered wad of white fluff at the centre of the crater. “ Does anyone know where I can acquire a new ball?”

“The leatherworking shop in Remire has some,” one of the boys says from the other side of the crater.

“Excellent. We will be heading back to the classroom.” Byleth dusts the last of the grass of her skirt. “I will be composing a letter of apology to Catherine for eviscerating her ball, and then I will be purchasing her a new one over the weekend.” She looks around. “What have we learned from this experience, class?”

“That we shouldn’t be playing triangle attack with some of the most talented mages of our generation as goalies,” Claude mutters. Byleth raises an eyebrow at him, and he has the _audacity_ to look offended. “Hey, I’m just telling the truth as I’m seeing it.”

“Well, yes, but there’s a way we can rephrase it to be more academic,” she says. “Sometimes, you have to make a decision as to whether the collateral damage is worth the victory.” She gestures widely at the crater. “And in this case, we have to make that decision… in hindsight. You guys can continue the game on your own time, if you’d like. I don’t have a ball or a desire to explain to my superiors why I’m leaving holes large enough to bury a body on monastery property. Class is dismissed.”

She takes one final, mournful look at the remains of the ball. “And please, for the love of all that this institution stands for, please _never_ tell Seteth about this.”

* * *

The three brisk knocks at Catherine's door tell her two things: that it's not Shamir, who only knocks twice, and it's not Manuela, who is never awake at this hour. "I'll be there in a second," she groans, unwrapping herself from her (tantalizingly warm) blankets. It takes far too long to find her slippers, scattered as they've become across the cold floor, and she trudges over to the door with her pillow still wedged under her arm.

"You'd better have a good reason for waking me up at the crack of dawn," she mutters, opening the door to—nobody at all. The hallway is silent; she looks down both ways, and sees no sign of her early-morning visitor. "Oh, what...?"

There's a roughly-wrapped package placed cleverly just out of the way of the swinging door, barely held together with thin twine. It falls apart in Catherine's hands as she picks it up, revealing a shiny new triangle attack ball. Even in her bleary morning state, she can count the waxed stitches along the seam of the tanned hide, each made to last as long as they can. It's well-balanced, too—the ball is soft from every direction, and feels like it's been properly stuffed with cotton instead of cheap debris or sawdust.

A slip of paper slips from the bottom of the package. She scoops it off the ground, closes the door and moves to the thin morning light by the window to read it.

_Sorry about your ball,_ it says in a slanted, loopy hand. _It didn't survive my nine o'clock class._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is still sweltering outside. stay safe and indoors my friends  
> again, i cannot stress this enough, do not for the love of all that is holy play triangle attack. it has _not_ been balanced properly and also we do not have magic in this world and also i've gotten into at least two arguments with a friend over the balancing of this sport. please do not play triangle attack for your own sakes and for my sanity. there is a reason i am not releasing the full rulebook for this hell sport  
> if you weren't previously aware, the gatekeeper is voiced by Kyle McCarley, who also voiced Alm in FE Echoes: Shadows of Valentia! in all honesty though i just want good things for the gatekeeper, he's a good kid and deserves the best


	13. elect to elective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After hours, behind closed doors, in between the gasps of school life.

“Sorry for being late, Teach,” Claude says as he arrives in the greenhouse. Professor Eisner is already there, sitting crosslegged on the garden bench with a book in her lap. “Bit of leisure reading?”

“Actually, my father recommended this book to me.” She holds it up, fingers wrapped tightly around the spine to preserve her page as she shows him the cover of  _ FÓDLAN TACTICAL PRIMER, VOLUME 1. _ “I suspect it’s had a significant influence on his leadership of the Knights of Seiros.”

“Huh. That’s cool.” He sits down next to her, dropping his watering can on the ground and ignoring the way it sloshes onto his boots. “What’s it about?”

“The direction of battalions, mostly.” She flips the page to show an impressively-drawn battle diagram, the margins filled with notes in a slanting hand. “So wide-scale battle, as opposed to one-on-one combat.”

Claude remembers Leonie’s stories, of how their combat professor is an expert tactician who has turned lone men into entire armies under her command. He can’t begin to imagine what the man who taught her—who raised her—is like. Captain Jeralt still feels like a fairy tale instead of a living, breathing man, and the fact that Professor Eisner hardly speaks of him only adds to the enigma.

Not to say that she isn’t an enigma herself. Professor Eisner still remains that one unsolved question, the final puzzle piece, the locked chest. There’s got to be  _ something _ that explains both her prowess in battle and the blank slate she puts on in front of everyone. She’s not entirely emotionless; he’s seen her smile, and heard of more instances from his peers.

By every star in the sky, he swears he’s going to get to the bottom of it, and figure out just  _ what _ she’s hiding.

“Anything on historical battles in there?” he asks, peering into the page she’s flipping to. The explanation of the previous diagram is again heavily annotated, in a hand that must be Captain Jeralt’s. He squints to read some of it. “Namely… the Succession War of 1072?”

“Now you’re just reading off my page,” Professor Eisner accuses, but her tone betrays her amusement before her face ever could. “Yes, there is a fairly detailed eyewitness account of the Succession War, from a knight of House Charon. I find it hard to believe that all the children of two parents with crests could be born crestless.”

Claude shrugs. “Maybe fate just wasn’t smiling upon them that generation.” He skims through the text, picking up words like  _ slaughter _ and  _ bloodbath _ and  _ massacre. _ “I find it even harder to believe that so many people—family members, even—would be so willing to turn on each other in an instant for power, and for what? Glory? Status?”

“Power,” Professor Eisner says, closing her book. “To those who crave it, there is no distance that is too far to go for power.” She fixes him with a look, and in the tilt of her head Claude reads a question. “Curious, seeing as those who are born into it are sometimes loath to accept the responsibility.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Claude grins at her. “We all crave what we don’t have,” he says, thinking of two thrones gilded in gold and the two very different men who occupy them. “Though, you really can’t blame Count Bartholomew for the Succession War. Split a piece of land among all your children, and have them split theirs for all their children, and in two or three generations you’ll be inheriting grains of sand.”

This reply seems to satisfy her, and she sets her book aside, dusts off her lapels and picks up a watering can on the other side of the bench. “My vegetables are growing,” she says, states it like a fact but with all the underlying tone of an excited child. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to harvest them.”

“You’ll be able to harvest the greens in a week or so, they grow fast.” Claude squats by the dirtbed, lifting up the leaves with a trowel to examine them. For the most part they haven’t been bitten by bugs, and the leaves are unfurling in all the right ways. “Yep. Your carrots might need a bit longer, and your Noa tree’s a bit dry, but they seem to be doing pretty okay.” 

He hops back to his feet in an instant, watching as she empties the watering can over her plants. Though she doesn’t look frustrated, her brows are furrowed, as though watering some vegetables is more difficult than directing armies in battle. Somehow, it feels about right for her—Byleth Eisner, combat instructor extraordinaire, defeated by some mustard greens and a week-old sapling. “I’d better check on my plants, too.”

There’s a piece of paper pinned to the fence around the belladonna plant, artfully suspended with a splinter of wood. He plucks it up, and smiles as he shows the slip to Professor Eisner. “Ignatz’s been here.”

“I can certainly tell.” She runs a feather-light finger over the charcoal sketch of the greenhouse interior, gentle enough to leave no smudge. “He’s quite talented. I’m genuinely impressed that he has the time and energy to keep up with his studies and create such beautiful pieces.”

Claude tries to smile, but the truth wipes away any mirth he has. “He… doesn’t really have the chance to draw at home, I’ve been told.”

“Ah.” Even though there’s no shift in her expression, blank as it is ever, Professor Eisner seems just a little bit dejected, a bit more broken than before. “Then I really must encourage him to expand his skill while he’s here at Garreg Mach, and perhaps your other peers as well. What do all of you tend to do after classes end?”

“Oh, everyone’s got their own thing…”

* * *

Embarrassing as it is, Edelgard is running late for an elective.

It wouldn’t be the first time, but with how tightly she’s packed her schedule, this is the latest she’s been to a class. She mentally berates herself for not spreading out her classes a bit more, and only blesses her luck that she’s not far from the classroom she’s supposed to be in.

She’s tired. The month’s assignments have not been kind to her; she insists on fighting her own battles, but not for the last time she curses her pride and wishes she could have let Hubert explain some of the thaumaturgical models to her instead of staying up late to review them herself. A final look through her bag has her realizing that some of her ink has spilled, but then she’s at the classroom’s door, and she can only hope that Professor Pronislav doesn’t notice her slink in through the back.

At first glance, the coast seems clear. Professor Pronislav has his back turned to the class, and is writing several equations on the blackboard while narrating his thoughts in an endless drone. Another sweep of the classroom has her panicking as she looks for a seat: what if he turns around and finds her in the middle of the class? What good would it be to her reputation as not just the leader of the Black Eagles but as the Imperial princess of the Adrestian Empire?

And then there’s someone waving a hand, and Edelgard dives between the rows and lands beside Ingrid, the serious girl from her combat class who’s always lecturing the rowdier boys. “Thank you,” Edelgard whispers, dropping her books on her desk. “I’m truly indebted to you.”

Ingrid doesn’t smile (Edelgard has barely seen her smile, ever) but she does bump their hands together in a move of seeming solidarity. “Sisters-in-arms should have each other’s backs, your highness.”

“Just Edelgard is okay, please.”

It’s uncanny. They’ve sat next to each other before in firearms class, if only because they share a combat class, and yet they’ve never really spoken to any extent. There’s some kind of comfortable silence they’ve found here as Professor Pronislav goes on and on about the flammability of flour, a mutual understanding of  _ you’re like me. _

Ingrid quietly slides Edelgard the notes she’s missed for her to copy down, which she does. In a corner of the paper, with the tiniest handwriting, she writes  _ you haven’t missed much. _

Edelgard has to suppress a smile.  _ Thank you. I’m glad to see that nothing has changed. _

It’s a good feeling, this solidarity between them. As Ingrid discreetly helps her clean the worst of the ink spill off her bag, Edelgard thinks that for the first time, she’s truly made a friend out of one of her peers at the Academy.

* * *

Dedue’s favourite place in Garreg Mach is the yard. There’s one tree that’s particularly dense with leaves, and in the sunniest of afternoons it makes a good place to do some light reading, or take a nap. No one really talks to students reading, and when Dimitri is busy in the afternoons Dedue will grab whatever’s on his reading list and sit among the tree roots for a while.

But it’s hard to read in the shade of the tree when sunset is inching by and it’s too dark to see the words, so Dedue finds solace in the greenhouse instead. Not many students know of it, despite the wonders that it contains. It’s just a peaceful place to be, surrounded by dense vegetation and the echoes of the glass walls.

Someone  _ has _ been here recently, though—Claude’s belladonna has been watered, as well as the tiny Noa sapling and the little vegetable plot that Dedue suspects belongs to Professor Eisner. If that’s the case, then it seems he’s underestimated her once again. Professor Eisner continues to surprise them all at every moment, and he’s never quite ready for her eccentric teaching.

But vegetable plots are simple to maintain, and once Dedue’s finished watering his own with water from the basin, he moves onto his little gardening project, which is still small but full of life. The warmth of the greenhouse is an inviting environment for growth, especially for the hardy Fhirdiad roses that he’s been nurturing since arriving at Garreg Mach. They’ve been growing steadily, and from the way that the woody stems are no longer brittle, he’s certain they’ll be blooming within the month.

The soil isn’t too dry, but he sprinkles bone powder around the rosebush and drenches it in water anyways, figuring that with his schedule, it might be a few days before he can visit the greenhouse again. The last thing he would want would be for it to dry out completely and leave the poor plant shrivelled up in the corner, where it’s  _ just _ beginning to climb the trellis he hauled in from the woodshop.

The greenhouse door bursts open, and he whirls around with watering can still in hand. Out of all the people he’d expected to be in the greenhouse at this hour, Lorenz Hellmann Gloucester (as he’d proclaimed on their first day of class) was certainly not one of them. “Good evening,” he offers.

Lorenz scans the greenhouse as though surveying his territory, turns up his nose snottily at Dedue, and makes a beeline for the water basin. That’s alright; Dedue prefers being invisible when he can. He didn’t come to the Officers Academy to make waves, after all. Still, it stings just a little when his classmate doesn’t even greet him in reply.

As he watches in what turns rapidly to abject horror, Lorenz gingerly dips a small cup into the water basin, marches over to the driest and scraggliest rosebush in the entire greenhouse and unceremoniously upends the cup over the dried leaves. Dedue winces as the paltry cupful of water scatters all around the plant in a wide radius, drying up in the instant that Lorenz turns away. “Your roses are going to need more water than that.”

Somehow, Lorenz’s face scrunches up even further. “I wasn’t aware I gave you permission to speak.”

_ One of those kinds, huh. _ “And I wasn’t aware that you’re just as incompetent at gardening as you are courtship,” Dedue fires back. As Lorenz devolves into indignant gasps and splutters, he gets a good look at the rosebush. “The leaves are shrivelled. How often do you water it?”

“O-once a week, as you should for a plant!”

“Not here, and not now.” Dedue squats by the poor shrivelled thing and pokes the soil with his trowel. “It’s far warmer in the greenhouse in the daytime, which dries them out far faster than you’d think. Furthermore, you’re raising a young rosebush, and it’s very important that they’re adequately hydrated so that they root quickly. What you’re doing would make more sense for a grown rosebush.”

It’s almost comical how quickly Lorenz deflates. “Oh,” he says, very quietly.

Dedue stares at him. “Is this your first time growing a young plant? That must be why you’re unfamiliar with the procedures,” he realizes, “you’re more familiar with mature roses.”

“Why, my family’s rose gardens are the pride of our estate!” Lorenz declares. “The most beautiful roses in the Alliance, carefully cultivated over centuries’ worth of time! Bred to have the brightest colours, biggest blooms and sweetest scent! I’ve only brought the best of our roses here, to present to all the horticulturalists of Garreg Mach!”

“Ah. You may find that such blooms are going to be difficult here.” Dedue taps the soil with his trowel. “It’ll take time for them to acclimate to the soil conditions here.”

Lorenz huffs. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me how to care for my own roses?”

“Oh, goodness no.” Almost experimentally, he pokes the poor rosebush; it crackles to the touch, and a whole stem breaks off when he retracts his trowel. “But I am going to say that the poor thing’s already dead.”

“It’s WHAT?!”

* * *

The library at Garreg Mach is pretty extensive, but on occasion Dimitri still misses the familiarity of the libraries in the royal palace. They were a place of much solace when he was a child, and he spent many an hour curled up with a friend and a book.

Perhaps that’s why the library here feels so stranger—there’s hardly any enjoyable literature. Everything is meticulously shelved by a small army of clergy members, not a single page out of place at any given time. It’s so  _ bland _ to walk between the endless shelves of textbooks and historical accounts and academic writings.

He’s never been so glad that Professor von Essar is teaching at least  _ some _ interesting literature.  _ The Edge of Time _ is a classic, but it’s far from the first bardic retelling of the War of Heroes that he’s read, and knowing his luck, it’ll be far from the last. Still, a good read is a good read, and he’s just pulling the book from the shelf and adding it to the pile already in his arms when he hears a sudden  _ thud _ on the other side of the shelf, followed by the tiniest  _ ow. _

Never one to hesitate, Dimitri rounds the corner in record time, finding Marianne from his combat class trying to sit up on the ground with one hand on her head. The pile of books on the ground, presumably those she intends to read, have been knocked askew. “Goddess above, are you okay?” he asks, immediately dropping his stack to help her to her feet. Contrary to all expectation, she shrinks away from him, and rises to her feet while gripping onto the bookshelf. “Marianne von Edmund, was it? Do you need medical assistance?”

“I’ll be okay, your highness.” She sketches a bow quickly, and Dimitri winces.  _ Can’t shake the prince status. _ “Just an accident, that’s all.”

“Just Dimitri is fine. We’re all equals here, and in class.” He offers a smile; she does not return it. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Marianne looks pensive, and for a moment Dimitri thinks she’s about to run off before she sighs and speaks in the smallest voice. “Would you mind reaching a book for me? It’s  _ Treatise on Herbal Poultices _ by Genevieve Iris Goneril.”

Yet another benefit of being tall: reaching high shelves, and retrieving things for one’s peers. “Thank you,” Marianne says when Dimitri hands her the offending book. “I… thank you.”

“Not a problem, Marianne. Please, don’t hesitate to ask me if there’s anything you can’t reach.” He stoops to pick up his stack of books, and catches her gaze as she’s staring at the books. “Is something the matter?”

Marianne ducks her head. “Oh, certainly not, your highness, I’m so sorry. I just… didn’t take you for the kind to read  _ The Edge of Time.” _

“Oh, this?” He looks down at the ratty old book in his arms. “Professor von Essar assigned it to us. I read it once, several years ago, but now that it’s on the curriculum I suppose it’s time for a reread.”

“That’s interesting. Professor von Hrym assigned us  _ Descendant of Sirius _ .” She shifts the stack in her arms to reveal said book at the bottom. “The prose is, um, less flowery than  _ The Edge of Time _ .”

“Ah, prose is admittedly not my strong suit,” Dimitri tells her sheepishly, “and I have yet to read  _ Descendant of Sirius _ myself. But we could certainly compare, if you’d like.”

Again, Marianne is quiet, and Dimitri wonders if he’s overstepped this time. She barely speaks in class unless prompted to, hardly spends time with their peers and often opts to eat alone. She’s constantly in silent prayer, and had it not been for the fact that they share a class, he staunchly believes that he wouldn’t even know of her existence.

But then she meets his eyes, and she looks almost hopeful. “If it wouldn’t be an inconvenience,” she finally says in a tiny whisper.

She still doesn’t return his smile, but it does seem a little bit brighter in their lonely aisle of the library.

* * *

“Hey Linhardt, how many primary feathers does a pegasus have on average?”

“Uh, somewhere in the range of four thousand, why?”

“Got it.” Caspar jots the number down and looks proudly at his notebook. “Cool. I am one step closer to finishing this paper.”

Linhardt snorts. “It’s a small wonder Professor Casagranda hasn’t docked you marks for your handwriting considering you write like  _ this _ all the time.”

The Eagles’ common room is fairly quiet at this hour, but then again, it’s never really loud. Aside from Petra, who is curled up in the big rocking chair by the fireplace and is soundlessly reading out passages from her book, Linhardt and Caspar are the only ones there. This means the nice couch is open, and they’ve taken it over accordingly.

This also means that Linhardt is sitting, leaning back into the worn cushions, while Caspar is lying across the rest of the couch with his legs hanging over the other side, and his head in Linhardt’s lap. A few of the other Eagles gave them weird looks about it during the first week or so of the school year, but that’s all in the past. It’s become a fact of life: where Linhardt is, there Caspar will be, and vice versa. They’ve been friends for long enough that physical boundaries don’t phase them in the slightest. Just as Caspar squashes himself into Linhardt’s chair, Linhardt will drape himself on Caspar in feline fashion.

It also pisses off both of their fathers, which is an added bonus.

“When did the War of Heroes begin again?” Caspar ponders, twirling his pen around his finger. “Thirty-two?”

“Most historians estimate around the Pegasus Moon,” Linhardt murmurs, but he’s distracted. He’s got that vacant look in his eyes again, like he’s thinking about things he doesn’t understand. He’s always got something on his mind, after all, and very rarely does that end up being schoolwork. Linhardt’s brain is like an intricate bronze clock, full of whirring gears and tiny mechanical parts, and Caspar’s is a stone sundial, concerned mostly with the changes around him and weathering them out as they come.

Fortunately, both tell time just the same, and maybe that’s why they’ve become such good friends. Linhardt mumbles and jots things down and scribbles out crests and compares them to spell sigils, and Caspar asks him arbitrary questions and finishes his paper. It’s the only way either of them will get schoolwork done at this rate, by bouncing ideas off each other until one of them finishes an assignment.

But hey, it works.

Caspar puts down his paper, satisfied with what he’s written. “Alright, looks good for now. Man, my writing grip is going to ruin my axe grip at this rate.”

Linhardt doesn’t respond. Caspar looks up to find his friend staring at his own notebook, far lost in thought. “Linhardt!”

“Wh—must you be so loud, Caspar?”

“You did the thing again.” Caspar throws his body forward, rolling himself back into an upright position. “How far have you gotten with the assignment?”

“Oh, I finished a few minutes ago. Just thinking about…” Linhardt cocks a smile. “A lot, I guess.”

“You wanna take a break?”

“Absolutely.” Linhardt freezes. “Caspar. How’d you get your pen to work upside down? The ink flows  _ down, _ how did you write anything?”

Caspar just shrugs.

* * *

There’s no rule at Garreg Mach in regards to whether students are allowed to be alone in a room together—not explicitly, anyhow. The constant presence of the clergy tends to put off anyone wishing to play hooky, and the pressure of schoolwork takes away most of their time, anyway.

That’s all good and fine to Annette, who finds it perfectly acceptable to be behind locked doors alone with one of her peers. Between their common ground as mages and shared combat class, it was inevitable that they would become friends, and now, they’ve finally reached a ground where they can expose some of their most intimate secrets to each other.

“I never realized that spellmark culture was so prominent in the Alliance,” she says as Lysithea opens a drawer in her dresser. “In the Kingdom, you could only really find other spellmark collectors and crafters in Fhirdiad.”

“That’s because the School of Sorcery’s there, I think.” Triumphantly, Lysithea pulls a key from the drawer. “Aha! Oh, you’re going to  _ love _ the antique Holtzclaw I got last year.”

Annette isn’t sure when she started collecting spellmarks, but her collection is sizeable, and definitely on part with Lysithea’s at this point. The intricately hand-crafted—and enchanted—bookmarks fit perfectly into spell tomes and grimoires, allowing the user to flip to a spell at will. At first, they were purely functional, but somewhere in past centuries it became a hobby to make them exceedingly beautiful, and that turned into a long-standing mage tradition of collecting spellmarks that both Annette and Lysithea are upholding.

Subsequently, to show another mage one’s collection of spellmarks is oftentimes an extreme gesture of trust and friendship. To steal another mage’s spellmark is the uttermost betrayal, and as Annette solemnly recounts to Lysithea, has resulted in lethal duels at the School of Sorcery in the past. The unspoken barrier rests between them as they seat themselves cross-legged on the floor in Lysithea’s room.

In what little light is afforded to them by the cracks between the swaying curtains, Lysithea unlocks the chest on the ground. The lid lifts ever so slightly when the lock clicks open, and she grabs the handle on top to open it the rest of the way. “Oh, you’ve got so many,” Annette gasps, looking at the neat stacks of spellmarks, each attached to a label from its creator, and the separate group of more fragile ones wrapped in felted wool. “How long have you been collecting?”

“Mmm… I think about five years? Maybe four.” Gingerly, Lysithea picks up one of the wrapped spellmarks, and removes its woolen sheath to reveal what might be the most beautiful spellmark Annette has ever seen: a stained-glass image of three brilliant white lilies, framed in polished cherry wood, all paper thin and small enough to fit in Lysithea’s palm. “It’s an authentic Holtzclaw, too. I checked and triple checked the magical signature myself.”

“It’s beautiful,” Annette whispers, barely containing the urge to reach out and touch it. “Seiros above, you lucky, lucky duck.”

Lysithea puffs up with pride. “This one’s specialized for Seraphim,” she says, wrapping it back up and replacing it in the box. “But I’d never use it on the battlefield. I can’t imagine losing it.”

“The  _ horror,” _ Annette agrees faintly.

They go through Lysithea’s collection together, seeing how the most elaborate ones match up to the cheaper ones. Functionally they’re all the same, but it’s just mesmerizing to watch the light glint off the precious gems set into the Dohrmanns, or the way tiny shells swim in the oil contained in the one-of-a-kind Trinity Vierra.

“You like the antique ones, don’t you,” Annette comments as Lysithea locks her box back up. “Ooh, maybe someday if we get the chance to all show each other again, Mercie has a  _ bunch _ of heirloom bas-relief spellmarks from around 860. A trader offered her  _ ninety-thousand _ gold for the whole collection. I kinda think he was half-joking, but that’s still a lot.”

“I can imagine. The oldest I’ve got is from 942, and the only reason I was able to buy it was because the enchantment was broken and the dealer lowered the price.” Lysithea grins cheekily. “Doesn’t matter, though. I reapplied the enchantment myself—spent a week chiselling the sigil with a nail—and it’s one of the best ones in my collection now.”

“That’s incredible,” Annette tells her, and means it wholeheartedly. Her new friend is incredibly talented, and while they try to keep the stress of school out of their friendship she can tell that they’re both learning so many things just by talking to each other. “I’ve made a few myself, but they aren’t very pretty.” She turns the key in the lock of  _ her _ spellmark chest, and it opens to reveal her meticulous sorting (by crafter, age and spell, no less) and labels in her mother’s tiny, tiny handwriting. “Here, I’ll show you them.”

“I want to see all of them,” Lysithea says, eyes bright, and Annette couldn’t agree with her more.

* * *

“Huh,” Byleth says, “I figured all of you would spend time in the common rooms in the evenings.”

“Oh, we do that too.” Claude gives her a cheeky grin, one that she can’t help but raise an eyebrow at. “But not always. I can’t speak for their Highnesses and their houses, but I’d probably drive myself to an early grave if we packed the Deer into our common room every single night. It’d be absolute pandemonium. Getting to spend time apart makes those times when we do collaborate all the better.”

“So your other instructors aren’t as open to my, ah, breaking down barriers?”

“Nope. They try to keep us competitive all the time.” He covers the upper half of his face, only letting his narrowed eyes glare through as he lowers his voice an octave:  _ “The Lions scored an average of three points higher than you lot on the last assignment. You need to pick it up.” _ He sighs. “Or maybe that’s just Professor von Hrym. I can never tell what he’s thinking.”

He sends her a conspiratorial wink. “Although, haven’t you been the one pushing us to talk to our peers in the other houses?”

“I suppose I have.” Byleth puts the back of her hand to her forehead and leans back, like she’s seen Hilda do so many times now. “My machinations have been foiled, oh no, whatever shall I do…”

And Claude looks at her, and honest-to-god laughs. Something warm catches in Byleth’s chest, a moment of innate recognition: he’s not faking it this time around. “That’s a good one,” Claude wheezes. “Y’know, Teach, for someone who seemed so scary and stone-cold when we first met, you can sure be funny when you have a mind to.”

“I wouldn’t believe it. I’m the least funny individual in the monastery.”

“Nah, that’s Father Seteth.” Claude’s eyes light up. “Now that’s a smile I like to see, Teach. Guess I’m not the only who likes poking fun at the clergy, hehe.”

Byleth rolls her eyes, though it doesn’t wipe the smile off her face. “You’ll find yourself in detention for your mischief one of these days, Mr. von Riegan, just mark my words.”

“Ha, they’ll never catch me alive for it.”

They stop at the intersection of hallways. “Well, have a good night, I guess,” Claude says. “I’ve still got a few readings to finish up for tomorrow.”

“And I’ve still got lessons to plan,” Byleth replies. “Though I daresay, considering that the monotony of the Succession War caught your interest, you’ll probably enjoy what’s to come.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it.” He gives her a playful salute. “See ya tomorrow, Teach.”

She waves once and stands alone, until even his shadow in the hallway has disappeared around the corner, and sighs. “They’ll be the death of me someday, this class.”

(As they have been, time and time again.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it turns out i just forgot summer was a season, thanks to a particularly miserable spring. it is still sweltering and i haven't had a good night's sleep in about a week  
> i have a Really Big friend group and subsequently i am of the belief that Everyone should have a Really Big friend group, and that extends to my writing more often than not. actually i would prefer if everyone in three houses were friends too. i think that was the whole point of me writing this fic in the first place  
> spellmarks were inspired by the wooden bookmarks that my dad made for me! a few years back he had a really thin sliver of wood and cut it down into bookmark-sized pieces, and i painted them with flowers and made them all pretty!


	14. double-edged sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth lectures about the past. Leonie charges for the future. Edelgard worries in the present.

“Chess is certainly a strange game,” Ferdinand muses, lifting his pawn a step to the side and knocking over Hubert’s with a graceful flick of his pinky. “For all its elaborate rules, it only serves to mimic the battlefield, and completely inaccurately at that.”

“Ah, but it is not a tradition founded in Fódlan.” Hubert glares down the chessboard, brows furrowed as he entertains possibilities. “Chess pieces, or at least similar game pieces, have been found dating as far back as the Vallite era. For all its storied history and prominence on the continent, the Adrestian Empire is quite the young nation compared to some of our overseas neighbours.”

“Perhaps that’s why chess was never really popular here, then—to force two, in a society built on threes?” Ferdinand scoffs. “It would be like playing triangle attack with only two teams. Culturally impossible.”

Hubert leans forward to send his bishop into Ferdinand’s half of the board, letting the piece drop from his fingers with a satisfied clatter. “Yet in a society built on duality, such as that of historic Nohr and Hoshido, a game like this is much more feasible, and even celebrated.” The corners of his mouth turn up in a sly smile. “It’s a calculated game that mimics the rise and fall of nations.”

“More like nations driving each other to nothing,” Ferdinand mutters. “Surely you must have read all three cantos of the Valla Cycle, Hubert. When the forces of Hoshido overcome those of Nohr, or the other way around, it is far from a fair battle.” As if suddenly hit with inspiration, he pushes a knight forward, directly into the range of the bishop. “No, chess is not wholly indicative of the rise and fall of nations. Fair Valentia is home to great chess players, and its own story of nations vying for power ended in reconciliation.”

“Anomalies rise in war. Peace is not so easy to obtain.” Hubert reaches out, as though to move the bishop, and freezes. Ferdinand gives him a smug, expectant look, as he looks past the knight in clear range of his bishop, and the pawn just a step behind to take out the bishop. “Huh. Well played.”

Ferdinand breaks into a smile. “They call it the Kings’ Game,” he says, “not because it was made for kings, but because kings  _ should _ play it—for themselves, and for the betterment of their nations.”

* * *

> _ Ever since the partition of the continent of Valentia through the establishment of the nations of Rigel and Zofia, their cultures drifted apart in tandem with the geography. This reflected on the fighting styles of the two nations, as well. Rigelian combat manuals from the early 230s (Valentian calendar) depict driving the pommel of one’s sword into the opponent’s ribcage after a swift sidestep, in contrast to contemporary Zofian manuals indicating sweeping an opponent’s feet out from beneath them. _
> 
> _ The reconciliation of the two nations into the One Kingdom of Valentia caused a struggle to find a new cultural paradigm, particularly in the military field: soldiers who had once been mortal enemies were hesitant to share each other’s views on fighting. Significant progress was made in bridging the divide in the wake of the Battle of Novis Island (Pegastym 406) where King Albein and Queen Anthiese combined Rigelian and Zofian tactics to push the invading pirates from the island. This sparked a growth in interest for a unified Valentian form of combat, one encompassing the best of the two component nations. _
> 
> _ — excerpt from  _ **_Customs of Modern Valentia_ ** _ by Rowen Winston, 1173 _

* * *

“I’m not going to stand up here and lecture about Valentia through this entire lesson,” Byleth announces. At the sound of the word  _ Valentia, _ a handful of students visibly perk up, but she continues all the same. “If I went on about Valentian history for the full hour, all of you would be asleep. So I’m going to introduce Valentian combat techniques instead, and some of the historical basis behind them.”

She looks down at the book on her desk, chock-full of bookmarks. "There are a few important things we have to discuss, though," she says, "before we begin. First of all, I'm not a scholar of history. I'm not qualified to give opinions on anything other than fighting, and even that qualification is dubious at best. Additionally, I don't know much about the religious customs in Valentia, but I do know that faith can be a sensitive topic. I ask that all you remain respectful when these subjects are broached.

“Let’s take a quick look back into Valentia’s history, for important context.” She draws two parallel lines across the board, joining them with quick diagonal streaks at the far side. “I’ll be marking down years in both the Valentian and Fódlan calendars, but in case I forget, the Valentian calendar begins with their year 0 in our Imperial year 761.” At the beginning of the timeline, she writes a thin  _ ~3000 before _ and taps it once with her chalk. “That isn’t to say that Valentia is younger than Fódlan—its story begins some three millennia ago, in Archanea rather than Valentia proper. The dragon all-divine Naga banished her servants Duma and Mila for their transgressions, and they settled in Valentia to the west.

“For much of its history, Valentia was barely inhabited by mankind. It wasn’t until about a millennium ago that two great nations were founded: the Empire of Rigel, and the Kingdom of Zofia, founded by heroes of the same name. Much of Rigel struggled with poor soil and subsequently poor harvests. In contrast, Zofia had the blessing of Mila the Earth-Mother, who gave the meagre soil life, allowing them to experience lavish harvests compared to their neighbours. This would result in many years of political strife between the nations, until a culmination in approximately Valentian year 401, when tensions rose to their highest.

“Recognizing a need to shake off the influence of both Duma and Mila alike, Emperor Albein Alm Rudolf the first set into motion a series of plans to have the royal heirs of both Rigel and Zofia unite against a common cause. This, coupled with ongoing tensions within the Zofian royal family, led to what is now known as the End of the Age of Gods in Valentia.” She flips the page, revealing an illustration of a youthful King Albein and Queen Anthiese facing Duma fallen to darkness. “I was admittedly far too young to remember this occurring, and forgive me if I don’t do the math, but I’m sure some of you were born after the unification of Valentia.”

Byleth looks away from the blackboard. It’s a small wonder that anyone in the class is still awake; she’s gone through all the parts where she stands at the front and drones on and on. “Congrats on making it this far,” she says dryly, getting a variety of grins and chuckles in response. “Let’s see what happens when we take the timeline apart.”

She sweeps the book to the side and takes her seat, crosslegged, on her desk. “Again, I cannot stress how much I am  _ not _ a historian,” she says, gesturing at the now filled timeline, “but looking at what we have so far, I can identify three major points of interest in studying the weaponry and combat styles of Rigel and Zofia, maybe even a fourth.” She scans the classroom, looking for someone who looks a little bit on the groggier side. “Mr. Victor, any suggestions on where one of these points might be?”

Ignatz’s eyes fly open in an instant. “Oh, uh, the difference in religious beliefs between the nations?”

“Absolutely. The identification of Duma as the War Father has a significant bearing on not just Rigelian combat, but the culture altogether.” Byleth flips to a dog-eared page in her book, checks a date, and adds it to her timeline. “Some time in the early forties, a council of the Duma Faithful put together the Creed of the Faithful, a document that described the duties of the faith. Any guesses as to what the focus of the Creed was?”

No one moves. Claude slowly lowers his hand. Byleth stares her class down. “Protection,” she says simply. “Prior to the banishment of Mila and Duma from the Archanean pantheon, Duma was known as the Kingshield, protector of Naga. His desire to protect his dragon brethren was the reason he and his sister were banished in the first place. Visit any church of the Duma Faithful, and you’ll find that the primary symbol of his worship was the war-shield. The more battered the better.” She nods at Ignatz. “Excellent point. Anyone else?”

Ingrid raises her hand. “The geography of the land probably had a bearing on the materials available to the people around them. Different steel blends for swords have effects on where the strongest point of the blade is.”

“Certainly so, Miss Galatea. Zofia is home to a variety of mountain ranges containing incredible mineral deposits, and more yet have been found in the deserts in Eastern Zofia. The Rigelian Shield is equally home to many mines and mining communities. And vastly different species of trees grow in the two nations, leading to different constructions of bows and various weapon shafts.”

Byleth pulls her knife from its sheath at her side, giving it a deft twist to the awe of her students. “The wrappings on handles can also be heavily influenced by local geography and climate. My knife handle, for instance, is wrapped in a thick hide, presumably from some felled beast in the north of Faerghus.” She passes it, pommel-side first, to Edelgard and Hubert. “Take a look. Don’t peel back the wrapping, that should go without saying.”

As the class  _ oohs _ and  _ aahs _ over her knife (is it really that interesting?) she hops off her desk to pull another weapon from the bucket behind the door. “Another major factor is agriculture,” she explains, slashing the sickle-sword in a crescent arc over her desk, “and local wildlife. Tools become weapons in a matter of seconds when a bear is standing in the middle of your berry patch. The same sickle that cuts down a bale of hay will cut down a man all the same. Know the land, and you’ll know your weapons.”

She drops the sickle-sword back in the bucket, silently thanking the door for keeping Seteth from finding the weapons she has stashed back there for demonstrations. As she turns back around, she finds that beyond the general fascination of her knife that’s taken over the class, one student has a hand raised, wearing a smug grin above it all. “Mr. von Riegan,” she says, amused, “something you’d like to share with the class?”

“You said you could identify, and I quote,  _ three, maybe even a fourth, _ in terms of major points of interest when it comes to the cultural divide in weaponry between Rigel and Zofia,” he drawls. “Might I suggest, for the fourth point, societal structure?”

This time, even Byleth has to struggle to keep a straight face. “Define  _ societal structure _ in the context of your answer, Mr. von Riegan.”

“Well, Zofia’s been ruled by a steady line of descendancy from its founding,” he says, “father to son, all the way down to Queen Anthiese. In contrast, Rigel’s ruling dynasty has primarily been picked based on military prowess. Emperor Rudolf was adopted by Rigel the third despite being only a distant relation, because he was a capable military leader, and if it hadn’t been for his military demonstration in defeating the fallen Duma I doubt Rigel would have accepted King Albein either.” He shrugs, and just like that, the spell is broken and the analytical light in his eyes turns back to mischief. “Though with his Deliverance Knights, I doubt any rebellion would stand a chance against him.”

The class stares in silence, awaiting Byleth’s response. She twirls the chalk between her fingers idly, not breaking Claude’s gaze. “Performance points for impressive analysis, Mr. von Riegan,” she says, and the whispers begin once more. “Yes, my fourth point would be, as you put it, societal structure, although I’d prefer the phrase  _ royal influence. _ While both the heroes of legend were both warriors, the contrast in the climate and ideologies of the two nations led to significant differences in leadership.” She gracefully takes her knife back from Hilda, sheaths it at her side and takes her seat on her desk once more. “Zofia needed a ruler who could manage the land, a speaker for the people who loved Mila and the harvest bounty she brought them. Rigel needed a ruler who could fight for the land, someone who would maintain order by protecting the people the way Duma wanted.

“In a way, King Albein and Queen Anthiese fill these roles perfectly… despite being terribly, terribly young at the time of their ascension.” Byleth flips a few more pages in her book. “Neither of them had reached their age of majority when they were crowned.” Her heart wrenches terribly; the historical practice of royalty rushing childhood has never sat well with her, in Fódlan or overseas. “Rigel needed its fighter, and King Albein proved himself worthy in killing Duma. Zofia needed its speaker of faith, and who better than Queen Anthiese, who grew up a priestess of Mila?”

She throws a glance at the clock, squinting at the curling hands. “Alright. That’s enough of the history,” she says. “We’re going to explore some traditional Zofian and Rigelian fighting techniques, and I want you all to pay attention to how they might have formed. For homework, I want each of you to pick one fighting technique and tell me how the four factors we just discussed contributed to their development. It doesn’t have to be long, and you can work in groups of up to three. Just be sure to put all your names on your paper before you hand it in.”

From behind the door, she lifts a shield up and out, strapping it to her arm in a single fluid motion. “Grab your weapons,” she says. “I’m going to teach you all how to  _ really _ fight with a shield, the Rigelian way.”

* * *

Whoever’s talking to Professor Eisner has been talking to her for a really,  _ really _ long time.

Leonie is just starting to get the  _ tiniest _ bit antsy.

She’s been pacing back and forth in front of Professor Eisner's door for what feels like an eternity (but really is just about half an hour), and the longer she goes, the more she wonders if she should just book it for the mess hall to grab a snack. The exhilaration of today's lesson and the immense need to just  _ blurt _ all her thoughts on it out to someone keeps her grounded here, though, unable to look away from that tantalizingly-closed door.

The muffled speaking inside stops, and there's creaking from what must be someone getting up from their seat. The door swings open, and Leonie finds herself staring as Edelgard steps out, clutching a leather-bound notebook and looking dazed, the way most of their peers do after having a long conversation with Professor Eisner. "Princess," she says far too quickly, sketching a bow.  _ Is that cat fur on her tights? Are the cats in today? _

Edelgard blinks, and her reverie seems to be broken as she tints pink and clarity returns to her gaze. "Just Edelgard is fine," she insists. "We are all peers and equals in the classroom, Leonie." Her eyes widen at the book and stack of papers in Leonie’s arms. “Goodness. I apologize for taking so much time. Please, don’t let me keep you.”

"Nah, it’s fine.” Leonie gives her a cheeky grin; even though she’s ticked about having to wait for so long, there’s a sincerity to Edelgard’s words (yet another byproduct of conversing with their dearest professor) that begs forgiveness. Besides, little bits of kindness go a long way. “Are the cats in today?”

“Just the Siamese,” Edelgard says, before her eyes crinkle at the corners with barely-suppressed mischief. “I apologize, I do not mean to insinuate that Professor Eisner has cats in her room. Would be an utter  _ travesty _ if Father Seteth were to assume so.”

With a conspiratorial smile, she’s off, dusting cat fur off her knees as she disappears into the hallways.

“Come in,” says Professor Eisner when Leonie knocks on the door. She’s knelt on her desk in a  _ very _ unladylike manner, pulling pins off her bulletin board and rearranging notes. “Miss Pinelli, I hope your ankle hasn’t been bothering you too much.”

Leonie winces. So Professor Eisner  _ did _ see her roll her ankle over a pebble during their spars today. “I’ve lived through worse,” she jokes, gingerly seating herself on the edge of the bed and looking at anything that isn’t her professor’s posterior. Something moves from atop the pillow, and Leonie is absolutely delighted when the Siamese rises up on stubby legs to pad across the bedding and plop itself next to her. “Oh, hello good sir, might I oblige you with some scratches tonight?”

The Siamese rumbles when she runs her fingers across its fuzzy head. She’s never been particularly fond of animals, save perhaps horses, but the monastery strays that Professor Eisner has seemingly adopted are certainly exceptions. There’s a particular soft spot in her heart for the way the Siamese likes to snuggle up against her leg, its sandy fur so pale against the fabric of her skirt.

Professor Eisner clears her throat, and Leonie snaps to attention, sheepishly turning away from the cat. “Taffy?” Professor Eisner asks, holding out the basket. She’s got one in her own hand, swirled in purple and green.

“Don’t mind if I do. Thank you, Professor.” Leonie reaches in and plucks out a taffy (split orange and purple down the middle), which she carefully unwraps. “If you don’t mind me asking, do you know what flavour this is?”

“Sunset root,” Professor Eisner says airily, which isn’t even remotely surprising. “It’s a sweet root vegetable harvested in southern Zofia. A bit risky to eat raw, but when cooked it’s often used to flavour sweets in Valentian cuisine.”

“Huh.” Leonie pops the candy in her mouth; it’s not overwhelmingly sweet, and has an earthy, almost fruity aftertaste. It sticks to her teeth like there’s no tomorrow, and she almost regrets putting the entire thing in her mouth in a single go when she sees Professor Eisner also trying to chew hers, and decides that maybe this is just a bonding experience of sorts.

Oh sure, part of her is still a bit miffed that she’ll never be able to learn from Captain Jeralt himself, but Professor Eisner is extraordinary in her own right. Any weapon instantly becomes lethal in her hands. She fights like a whirlwind of armies, despite being just one person. This past month under her tutelage has led to Leonie learning more than she’s ever learned in her life.

She’s also apparently fool enough to get her teeth stuck to taffy.  _ Solidarity, _ Leonie thinks miserably.

The cat purrs for pets, and she obliges it until she’s able to talk again. “Speaking of Valentia,” she says, even though it has been a good minute since Professor Eisner last spoke, “I wanted to ask something about today’s homework assignment, since it came up in my research.”

“You’ve come at a good time to ask,” is the garbled response.

“Well, I was reading a translation of a Rigelian archers’ manual, and I noticed that it was strictly directed towards men,” she says. “And that was honestly kind of baffling, so I pulled up a Zofian manual as well, and it was the same.” She slides one of the books from her pile and cracks it open to the bookmarked page. “Then I checked a book on Valentian culture, and it tells me, quote,  _ the role of military archer has long been reserved for men exclusively, since before the formation of Rigel and Zofia as separate nations.” _ She snaps the book closed, a sour taste rising in the back of her mouth. “And I call bull on that. Why can’t women be military archers? Is it so bad for a woman to so much as touch an arrow?”

Professor Eisner stares at her for a heartbeat before sighing and dragging a hand down her face, and Leonie’s honestly scared that she’s disappointed her professor before she speaks. “You’re absolutely right, Miss Pinelli. It is  _ deeply _ unfair, and I’m glad to be the one to tell you that said law has been revoked by King Albein and Queen Anthiese following their ascension.”

The weight dragging down on Leonie’s heart dissolves in a second. “Oh, thank the Goddess.”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t question why it was in place to begin with,” Professor Eisner reminds her. “No one’s done much inquiry into it, and from what I’ve read it was  _ very _ controversial when the law was revoked, but I have some theories.” She counts them on her fingers; Leonie counts her calluses. “One, the arrow is a highly phallic symbol. I figure it was a matter of men claiming the weapon for its, er, connotations.”

(For her part, Leonie holds back a laugh.)

“Two, women were seen as being impeded in their archery by, well…” Professor Eisner grimaces and pokes herself in the chest. “Though that’s never gotten in the way of my archery. Female archers are well-documented in the Valla Cycle, and as far away as Elibe. Three, Valentian womenfolk were seen as naturally gravitating towards the magical arts rather than physical weapons, which is why the role of military healer was reserved for women until King Albein and Queen Anthiese shut that law down too.”

“But not every woman is naturally magically-inclined,” Leonie argues. “I mean, look at me! I don’t have a drop of magic in me, but I’ve been shooting since I was a girl. I mean, props to people who can use magic, but… I’m not going to let that define me as a woman.”

Professor Eisner nods sagely. “Lady Mathilda of Valentia was said to be the most outstanding gold knight Zofia had ever seen, and has served as a royal tactical advisor long since her formal retirement from the army.” She makes a face. “In all honesty, I think it is foolish to limit weapons or certifications to one group or another. Anyone who says a woman can’t pass her war master certification should see Catherine in a bar fight.”

This time, Leonie does break out laughing. “I'd wager good money on her," she admits. "And on you, Professor, if you ever got in a bar fight.”

“Would you now.” Professor Eisner studies her with curious eyes as she crumples the wax paper into her pocket. “Then I must say, in a shoot-off of equal bows and arrows, I would place my bets on you, Miss Pinelli.”

The laughter dies off Leonie’s tongue in a second. “Me?” she says incredulously. “I mean, gee, I’m handy with a bow, but that might be pushing it.”

“In your letter, you said you wanted to challenge the bow knight certification,” Professor Eisner says, and Leonie immediately regrets everything she wrote in that letter, _ oh Goddess, Professor Eisner read that. _ “Very few students have the ambition to tackle a master class certification, especially at the beginning of the year. I must commend you for having the guts to pursue that, but even more so for having the drive and the skill to back it up.” Her eyes twinkle with some otherworldly kind of mischief. “And just between you and I, Miss Pinelli, the best bow knight I’ve ever known was a woman who didn’t use a lick of magic, and she still outshot anyone who had the folly to challenge her.”

Apparently satisfied with what she’s divulged, Professor Eisner hops off her desk and strides over to her window. “I don’t know what you’ve chosen as your technique of choice for the assignment,” she says, opening the window and effortlessly hoisting up a cat in each hand (how’d she know they were there?) before dropping them unceremoniously to the floor. The cats, unphased by the fact that Professor Eisner just threw them like beanbags, begin to climb onto every surface: the bed, Leonie’s legs, the desk, the windowsill. “Regardless, the factor of gender division has its grip in every nation’s history, and I’m glad we got to discuss it.” The ragdoll purrs its way into her lap; she runs her slender fingers across its back. “You don’t have to hand the assignment in tonight, if you want to spend a bit more time researching. My box will be open all week.”

“No, I think I’m good…” Leonie opens her mouth to speak, and inhales what feels like a world unknown to her:  _ she still outshot anyone who had the folly to challenge her. _ Therein lies the difference—Professor Eisner is a former mercenary, and Leonie has been cooped up in Sauin nearly her entire life. “Professor, do you mind if I ask another question?”

“Ask away.”

“That woman you spoke of,” Leonie says, “is she… is there any way I could meet her?”

What she means to ask is  _ that woman you spoke of, is she still alive, _ because she clings onto every word that Professor Eisner says and she did  _ not _ miss that use of the past tense, but Professor Eisner just looks sad and happy all at once, like Leonie has accidentally stumbled across some inside joke of hers. “You’ll definitely meet her someday, Miss Pinelli. I’m certain of it.”

“Then I’ll challenge her,” Leonie says, rushing to her feet. “Because I’m going to train, Professor, until I can outshoot  _ anyone. _ Everyone.” She gulps, and keeps going. “I’m going to aim as high as I can, Professor. Nothing short of the best.”

And Professor Eisner just smiles _ —smiles!— _ and pats her on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t expect anything else from you, Miss Pinelli.”

Felix is at the door waiting when Leonie leaves, and he gives her a commiserating look that lets her know just how dazed she looks.  _ It’s the post-Eisner daze, _ she thinks weakly. “Are the cats there?” Felix asks.

“All three of them,” Leonie says. “I mean, what? Cats? You gotta be kidding me, there aren’t any cats. Would be an utter  _ travesty _ if Father Seteth were to assume so.”

* * *

The alcove in the library is many things— a good place to sleep, a sanctuary for long cram sessions, a decent place to arrange a clandestine meeting or a recurring study group—but comfortable it is not. Someone keeps rearranging the seating and the orientation of the table, and it’s almost comical to see Dimitri, tall and proud, wedged into the corner on a too-small stool.

“Any luck?” Claude asks when Edelgard approaches, her stack of books in hand. How he manages to sit cross-legged in that chair, she’ll never know; some of her peers are made of far more feline stuff than she’ll ever be.

“She says we’re free to finish the assignment with whomever we wish to,” she reports, “which I take to mean that we’re free to take this on together.” She grimaces. “I would take this latter part with a grain of salt, but, and I quote,  _ as long as you keep it under ten pages, you can work with anyone.” _

“Well, at least we know there’s an upper limit to the size of our assignment,” Dimitri sighs, leaning back into the corner. “But that unfortunately doesn’t help us with our research problem.”

“Ah, Professor Eisner had a solution for that.” Edelgard cracks open her notebook and tugs on the ribbon until she gets to the most recent page. “We’ve been looking primarily at contemporary history, but Professor Eisner suggests digging into older combat manuals instead.” She squints at her own messy handwriting, disappointed in its illegibility. “She recommends  _ Treatise on the Science of Arms _ from 268, Valentian calendar, in particular.”

Claude brightens up. “Oh, I remember seeing that.” He unfolds himself mechanically from his seat, seemingly disassembling and reassembling his joints in a matter of moments. “I’ll be right back.”

The light of his candle vanishes behind a stack of shelves, and Edelgard finally takes a seat on one of the open stools. “We’d best look over what we have in the meantime,” she murmurs, to what seems to be agreement from Dimitri.

You can tell a lot about someone from their handwriting; Edelgard knows where to look but not how. The three of them, each raised in positions of political significance, each write in the same standard cursive that differs only the ways that matter. Edelgard writes with precision, forming her words in varying heights but maintaining the same tiny script throughout. Dimitri’s hand is steady and bold, putting emphasis on his grandiose flourishes. Claude treats each letter like a picture, penning strange and yet elegant landscapes with his words.

It fascinates Edelgard to no end, because she’ll be halfway through reading a section that she doesn’t recall writing when she realizes,  _ oh hey, _ that’s not her handwriting, and no wonder the grammatical structure seemed off. The differences are so miniscule that her eye is truly untrained, and perhaps a more discerning or more professional eye could tell her how personality is formed by pen.

In contrast, Professor Eisner’s writing is slanted and far from the flowery cursive that is taught in schools. Very little of it lingers in Edelgard’s notebook, seemingly evaporating into thin air as though it had never existed. Hers is a hand that is practiced instead of taught—loops and curls, tilted to the side as though her page is perpetually on an angle. She curls the ends on her  _ gs _ but not on her  _ ys. _ It’s a free hand, as befitting a free spirit like Professor Eisner.

Trying to read the paper in her hands, however, is frustrating for other reasons entirely. They’ve all been scribbling down ideas and conjectures, and Edelgard finds herself constantly rotating the page to figure out what’s written down.  _ Use of tomes and staves differentiating between Zofia and Rigel, _ says Claude-of-twenty-minutes-ago.  _ Earth used as channel in Zofia → power of Earth Mother, Mila’s influence? _ It’s frustrating enough to read such disjointed ideas without the twists and turns of the paper, and the dim candlelight just makes the words swim with fervor, as if it weren’t already hard enough—

Edelgard slams the paper down on the table, brow furrowed as she exhales sharply. It’s been a long day. Royalty or not, she’s allowed to set down her crown and take a rest once in a while.

Across the table, Dimitri seems to be proving her point, staring aimlessly forward despite her sudden violent smackdown just seconds ago. His eyes are glazed over, and for a moment, the rest of him seems it too: glassy and fragile and so, so very easily shattered. She clears her throat, and when he startles to attention she shoots him a weak smile. “You looked like you were about to nod off.”

“Oh.” He blinks rapidly, and life floods back into his eyes. “I apologize. I was merely lost in thought.”

“It’s been a long day,” Edelgard amends. “We are only human, after all.”

“That we are.” Dimitri’s half-formed smile seems to drown in the candlelight. “And yet, in the end the weight of a nation falls on the shoulders of one human alone. The tale of King Albein and Queen Anthiese is heartwarming to me, not just because they were effectively betrothed to each other at such a young age and regained love in each other, but because they rule as equals, so that the weight of Valentia may not bear one of them down at any given time.”

Edelgard winces. “It is a romantic tale, I’ll admit, but you understand it cannot apply here with crests and consorts at play. The nature of Fódlan is that it’s built on a foundation of three or one—never two.” She sighs. “Old habits die hard for the person, and harder still for nations.”

“Good news, I found it!” The candlelight rounds the corner, and Claude follows with a massive manual and a grin, the latter of which fades when he comes to a screeching halt by the table. “Jeez, you guys look like you’re about to drop dead. How about we take a breather before we get back into it?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Edelgard reaches into her pocket, suddenly remembering the goodies that Professor Eisner insisted on her taking before she left. “I forgot about these, but care for a taffy?”

This time, Dimitri manages to crack a smile. “It seems Professor Eisner is watching out for us in our darkest time,” he says, gratefully accepting a taffy and passing one to Claude, who piles himself back into the nice chair. “We really don’t appreciate her foresight enough.”

“No, we really don’t,” Claude muses. “It’s like she’s got a third eye on the back of her head. Nothing escapes her.” He takes a bite of his taffy pointedly. “Not even preemptively tired students, apparently.”

_ No, nothing does, _ Edelgard thinks, finally feeling the tension of the night fade from her sore shoulders as she leans back with a content smile and nibbles her taffy. If there’s anything at all that she can agree with her fellow house leaders on, it’s their admiration for Professor Eisner.

And, of course, how far the three of them are willing to go to impress her.

* * *

“That should be the last of the two o’clock class,” Byleth murmurs, making the check on her attendance sheet. Yup, all of them down. She shuffles around her sheets, looking for the complete column of checkmarks. There’s only a few stragglers left; a group researching the exemplar tradition in her ten o’clock class, Linhardt and Caspar who requested an extension, and most curiously, her three house leaders.

She can’t help the frown that tugs at her lips. She’d agreed to let them work together, mostly out of curiosity as to what could  _ possibly _ result from such a group of students. Now, she’s just curious as to when they’re going to submit their assignment. It’s starting to get late, and while she’s aware that none of her students care much for their sleep schedules, those three in particular work themselves into the ground everyday, and need the rest.

(And honestly, so does she.)

With a sigh that collides with the ragdoll’s sympathetic trills, she gets out of her seat, ignoring the creaking of her knee as she straightens her leg out. Hopefully a few more of those assignments have come in since she last went to collect them, several hours ago.

Sure enough, there’s a small stack of papers in her box, and she scoops them up eagerly. “This should be all of them,” she murmurs, closing the door behind her as she looks through the pages. Her face falls with each successive flip, as she reads the names across the top of each page repeated across all nine pages.  _ Edelgard von Hresvelg. Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. Claude von Riegan. _

_ “As long as you keep it under ten pages, you can work with anyone,” _ Sothis parrots.  _ “I do not invoke these words often, Byleth, but you truly have brought this upon yourself.” _

In response, Byleth groans and slams her forehead to her desk.

It’s going to be a long,  _ long _ night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter brought to you by heritors of arcadia on repeat for three days straight  
> for all that i go off about fe3h, shadows of valentia is still probably my favourite game in the series and i will stop at nothing to lavish it in praise. right before writing this chapter i tried to play SoV on an emulator but it ran at 9 whole frames per second and i had to give up  
> Alm and Celica are both alive and reigning in Valentia in this story! i believe they're about 35, and i like to think they have three kids, the oldest of whom is ehhhhh 16? i'd presume Marth and Caeda are also alive and reigning in Archanea but i haven't done the math for those two yet because i am numerically illiterate. they can also have kids as a treat and also because bloodlines and Ylisse in the distant future and all that jazz  
> the only reason chess never caught on in fodlan is because three-way chess is extremely chaotic and pointless to play  
> sunset root corresponds to ube, which was a flavour suggested by a friend of mine!


	15. into the unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mission is assigned, talks are had, and candy is consumed.

“My dear Professor,” says Archbishop Rhea, “I have a request I must ask of you.”

* * *

The door creaks open, and immediately every whisper of gossip in the classroom is cut brutally short as Byleth walks in, carrying a stack of papers in her arms and the weight of the world on her back. “Good morning,” she says, scanning over the classroom. Everyone is present in person, if not in mind—Linhardt is already napping, and a few of the students look like they ran here just moments before she arrived. “I see all of you are ready for the day.”

No one says anything. She raises an eyebrow. “Are we not ready? We can start with three laps around the monastery, if that’s the case. That ought to wake you all up.”

The resulting unanimous, panicked shout of “NO!” nearly knocks her clean off her feet. Smugly, she drops the papers at the edge of her desk and takes her seat at its centre.

“Housekeeping things first, I’ve been asked by your house instructors to hand back some of your assignments from this month and last.” She lifts the nine-o’clock section out of the stack and yanks out the twine holding them together. “I received them in alphabetical order, so you can imagine how long it took me to put them in piles according to your rows in class.”

She hands a stack to Edelgard, one to Dimitri, and passes the last with significant difficulty to Hilda, neither of them making any motion to leave their seats. “There should be four assignments for each of you, so just take yours and pass them back. Please make sure you haven’t taken anyone else’s papers.”

There’s a bit of a scramble as the class tries to distribute their own assignments. Byleth watches with only mild amusement as grades are received with varying degrees of gracefulness, accompanied by deflating sighs and bold fist pumps in equal measure. “All done? Then we’ll get on with today’s lesson.” She digs a piece of chalk out of her pocket, grimacing when her retracted hand emerges covered in dust.  _ I should probably wash this jacket—or, at the very least, the pockets. _ “We’re going to be working on recovery times in hand-to-hand today. A staple of the battlefield is your ability to bounce back from a hit.”

Silence. Byleth tilts her head. “Huh,” she says, “I know I’m not particularly fluent in cultural norms, but did I say something offensive by accident?”

No one even moves. She looks down innocently at the chalk in her hand. “Is it socially unacceptable to be seen teaching with one’s hand covered in chalk dust?”

Ferdinand coughs loudly. “Quite on the contrary, Professor.”

“Oh? Then is something the matter, Mr. von Aegir?”

He shoots a desperate look at his desk partner Dorothea, who has her gaze trained on the ceiling and stalwartly refuses to budge. “Well, it’s just,” he stammers, “we are nearing the end of the month, Professor.”

“I don’t see how that has anything to do with my teaching.”

“The end-of-month mission,” Ferdinand blurts. “Professor, of all the combat classes… we’re the only one who has yet to receive our assignment for the monthly mission. Surely you must have something for us before the month ends.”

Byleth sighs, hopping off her desk. Her entire class is staring openly at her now. “And here I was, wondering when one of you would summon the guts to address the elephant in the room,” she sighs melodramatically.

The class immediately flies into a fine frenzy, everyone yelling one thing or another. “Alright, alright, I apologize,” she says, circling back around her desk to the blackboard. “Perhaps that was a little mean-spirited of me.”

“Not mean-spirited,” Dimitri wheezes, “just terribly unexpected, Professor. You’re not usually the humorous kind.”

“I try to make every day a positive learning experience,” she drawls. “Now, as I’m sure you’re all  _ dying _ to find out, yes, there is a monthly mission for your class, and I will be leading it personally.” The response to this is a wave of gasping from all around; is it really that hard to believe that she’s going to be joining them? “However, there is an element of high risk to it, and I need all of you to be serious about it and understand that it is going to be dangerous.”

She throws a glance to the hallway door, and another to the courtyard door, and only when she’s certain no one could possibly eavesdrop she speaks again. “Last month, a few students of the Academy were attacked by bandits. My father’s company was nearby at the time, and we were able to scare off the bandits. This is how I came into the service of the Church as an instructor.” She stares over everyone’s heads, deliberately ignoring the pointed looks that her house leaders are giving her. “However, reports from the Knights of Seiros are telling us that this group of bandits has set up camp in Zanado, the Red Canyon.”

A ripple of silence. This time, she does make the effort to make eye contact: Mercedes, looking like she’ll be sick; Petra, confused but worried; Ignatz with a furrowed brow. “I’ve been told that the Red Canyon is a sacred place in the tradition of the Church, and it is of  _ utmost _ importance that these bandits are removed  _ permanently _ from their current location. I’ve been authorized to exact lethal measures when necessary. That said, these bandits have fought with the intent to kill before, and I am certain that they will once more.

“This class is exceptionally well-rounded in all aspects,” she says, “be it in academics or on the battlefield. I assigned this mission to you in particular because I trust that all of you will take this mission very seriously, and you will not rush head-first into battles you cannot win. Furthermore, I don’t want this to be a straight bloodbath.” She makes sure to sweep the class with her glance. “The Knights of Seiros will be joining us should we need reinforcements. Show me that we don’t.”

Byleth looks down at the chalk in her hand, which she hasn’t used—force of habit alone put it in her grasp. “Okay, that’s enough of the mission. We won’t be more than a few hours, but travel time will be tight. We meet here tomorrow at seven.” She sticks the chalk back in her pocket and slips off her jacket. “In the meantime, let’s get back to today’s lesson. Grab your training weapons, I’ll debrief the exercise in the courtyard.”

As she dusts her own hand off and yanks a training sword from the bucket behind the door, the students filter out, leaving none other than her three house leaders lingering behind. The door swings shut, and Claude sighs from atop his desk. “So we’re going after the bandits,” he says, “the same ones who, ahem, attacked a few students of the Academy last month?”

“It wouldn’t have done well to inform everyone blatantly of our misadventures,” Edelgard argues. “But, I must ask… Professor, your words seem to betray another motive.”

“Well perceived, Miss von Hresvelg. I would like to capture these bandits alive rather than dead.” She sets the training sword down flat on the desk. “In part because I fear it will do more harm to some of your peers than good if they were forced to kill—even when it comes to petty thieves. But I admit, there is some further drivel to it.”

Dimitri hums. “You want to find out why the three of us were targeted last month.”

“That is indeed what I want to look into.” She doesn’t miss the way Edelgard’s eyes go wide for a heartbeat before she straightens herself out, imperceivable to all but the eye that knows what to look for. “I have… my theories, but I can’t be certain until we get words directly from them.” She grimaces. “And even then, I doubt we’ll get any useful information from them.”

“Professor, the Church will almost certainly give them the death sentence even if you haul them back here alive.”

She shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gotten someone executed,” she says, far too casually for a teacher who they look up to. “Now, let’s get going. Your peers are waiting.”

Up in the astral plane, Sothis is frowning at her.

* * *

Jeralt is many things, but a prophet he is not.

So it scares him just a  _ little _ when he knows, to the dot, what Rhea’s requested of his daughter. Byleth is polishing her sword beside him, a strip of leather laid over her knees to rewrap the grip as she scrubs the fuller of the sword down. “The Archbishop’s not letting me intervene,” he tells her. “You sure you’ll be okay through this, kid?”

And just like always, her thoughts are a million miles away as she responds, distracted in her work, “as much as I can be.”

“You don’t seem like it. Any more polishing and you’ll wear a hole through that steel.”

Byleth blinks, seemingly startled as she looks down at the sword in her hands. “Far from it.”

Jeralt frowns. “You were staring,” he says gently. “Got a lot on your mind?”

“Mostly just the mission.” She inhales, exhales, looks the part of a young woman instead of an old soul once again. “I just… hadn’t expected to be leading so many students—so many  _ young _ students—into battle.”

“Different from leading a bunch of old, grizzled soldiers?”

“Definitely different. It’s a learning curve for them and me both.”

“Well, it’s as expected. You’ve spent your whole life with the same few guys from the company. I wouldn’t expect you to adjust to life at the monastery in a heartbeat.” A memory arises unbidden: Byleth at five, grasping onto one of his fingers with her entire hand, staring at his mercenaries with blank, blank eyes. “Then again, it’s also the first time your brats are having a former mercenary for a teacher. Of course it’s gonna be different from their textbooks and essays.”

“They seem to like it.”

“It’s on-the-job training, what’s not to like?”

“They’re going to be walking the thin line between life and death,” she insists, and Jeralt is surprised to find desperation in his daughter’s tone. “Even though my nine-o’clock class is strong, I… fear that I won’t return with all of them.”

Jeralt smiles. “Now you’re in my shoes,” he says, scrubbing his hand through her hair. She squirms to the touch, but doesn’t duck away; there’s some parts of her that remain a child, no matter how old she’s gotten. “Keep your head on your shoulders, and you’ll be fine. I’ve seen how much you care for those kids. With you guiding them, I’m certain no harm could come over you.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

It’s still a shock to hear her call him that, every time. Nearly twenty-one years of being a father, and Jeralt still hasn’t quite acknowledged it. Then again, how could he, raising a stony-faced child the spitting image of her deceased mother?

But Byleth isn’t Sitri, and she isn’t Jeralt, either. Time and time again, she manages to surprise him with how far she’s come as a mercenary, as a professor, and now as a leader. If her students’ tales are anything to go by, she’s inspired growth and a genuine desire to learn in them, and she’s grown on her own as a person.

Not for the first time, Jeralt is a little shaken by how proud he is of his daughter for becoming such a capable person.

“You go handle your brats, and I’ll try and figure out what Lady Rhea wants out of you,” he assures her. “Pack light, split up into smaller groups to take things on, and you’ll do fine. You’re taking twenty-four to take down, what, a dozen people? Your brats are going to steamroll them.” He grins. “I’ve seen them, and I’ve seen you. They won’t stand a chance.”

“Hardly a fair fight,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “A group of professional, well-trained hooligans known for terrorizing Fódlan… against those bandits?”

Jeralt stares at her, and laughs. “You’re gonna be great, y’know, kid? You’re gonna go places.”

For a moment, Byleth gives him the faintest of smiles, and Jeralt figures that even if he’s done nothing else, he’s raised her right.

* * *

The knights and clergy in the mess hall whisper when Byleth passes by, as though she cannot hear them. At this point, she’s almost certain that they  _ want _ her to hear the gossip, if only to see how she reacts.

“She’s not the first instructor to not follow in the faith of the Goddess,” someone says. “Shamir Nevrand doesn’t even attend Sunday mass with the students.”

“Shamir Nevrand serves the Archbishop,” a nun reminds them, “and by extent she serves the Goddess. And even without faith, she regularly upholds the morals of the Goddess, which I cannot say for many of our religious siblings.”

“Yeah, but this is the daughter of Captain Jeralt we’re talking about, don’t you think it’s a bit weird she’s not religious? There’s no way he didn’t raise his kid religious.”

A knight scoffs into his drink. “It was weird having him return to begin with. We all knew that the Archbishop was going to appoint Thunderbrand Catherine as the new Captain. Bit fishy that he should just appear out of the blue with his heretic of a daughter and waltz right back into his old job that he  _ abandoned _ years ago, don’tcha think?”

And normally Byleth ignores their ramblings—she’s long figured out that she’ll never run in the same circles as the clergy and the knights—but this is too far. Her father is one of the most righteous people she’s met. She  _ can’t _ stand for this kind of disrespect for someone who sacrificed everything to see his daughter grow up safely—

Someone puts their hand on her shoulder, and she whirls around, nearly knocking the helmet out of their grasp. “Oh, gosh, sorry about that,” says Rudy, ever sporting a bright smile. “Greetings, Professor. Nothing to report today, though I hear you’ve got quite a mission ahead of you.”

“I certainly do,” Byleth says, aware that a whole table of gossipers has gone silent in their quest to study her interactions. “Are you heading out for your post?”

“Nah, I just finished my afternoon shift and I’m taking a dinner break.” He throws a look at the line of students and makes a face. “Though I think now I should wait until there’s a break in the dinner.”

Byleth pushes her bowl of mixed berries at him, and he stares at her. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly take these, Professor.”

“You should eat. You’ve been standing on patrol all day.” She gives him her very best teacher glare, the one she gives Claude when he tells her he hasn’t eaten anything since morning. “Your body will falter if you do not replenish it with energy.”

“Alright, if you insist.” Rudy’s grin is practically blinding. “Thank you, Professor.”

She shrugs and takes another bite of her herring tart. The knights and clergy members are openly staring at her now, as though the idea of her having a civil conversation with one of their peers is unthinkable. She could not care less; Rudy makes far nicer company than any of them, anyhow.

“Word on the grapevine is that you’re taking your students on a patrol,” he says excitedly, taking the seat across from her at the table. “Into the Empire, they say! I think your students have bought out the entire stock of all the vendors in the marketplace today.”

“And here I was, telling them to pack light.” She shakes her head. “It’s… not quite a patrol, I suppose, but we are heading west at the very least.”

“Ah, then perhaps we’ll bump paths when you’re heading out!” He beams at her, taking a meager few berries from her bowl before inconspicuously pushing it back in her direction. “I’ve a scheduled vacation day this weekend, and I’m going to be visiting my grandmother.”

Byleth pokes her salad. “She must be very lucky to have a grandson who cares so much for her.”

Rudy turns pink in an instant as he flaps an errant hand at her. “Aw, shucks, Professor, it’s not much. I’d much rather be able to live with her, but… it’s easier to earn money this way and send it home whenever I visit.” He stares wistfully at the bowl on the table, face occupied with what Byleth can only describe as a goofy smile. “To be honest, I kind of envy you and Captain Jeralt.”

“Oh?”

“Well, yeah! I know he’s off on missions of his own with the Knights all the time, but you get to see him more often than not, and you can ask him for advice,” he says earnestly. “And I’m not saying this because Captain Jeralt is a hero to me, but I just think it’s nice to have someone to act as your pillar in your times of need, y’know? Sometimes I wish I could bring my grandmother here, but she’d never leave the village, and who am I to trample on her happiness?”

It is thus that Byleth decides that Rudy is a very good person (though she was ready to give him that title anyways) based solely on how honest his rambling is. The look that some of the knights are giving him makes her think that he isn’t quite respected among their ranks; to maintain that bright smile and dedication to his job is admirable in its own right.

“I’m sure she appreciates everything you do for her,” she ends up saying, unsure of how to convey her thoughts in a friendly manner. “You clearly love and care for her a lot if you make it an absolute habit to visit her once a month.”

“Yeah! She raised me, and she’s always supported my dream to come here. I owe everything to her,” Rudy tells her with nothing short of adoration. “I don’t feel like I show her that enough.”

“Then tell her,” Byleth says, thinking of the way her father’s eyes light up every time she calls him Dad (and his beatific smile as he lay dying under her tears and the weeping sky,  _ to think that the first time I saw you cry, your tears would be for me). _ “Sometimes it feels best to hear those words spoken.”

Rudy grins. “You think so, Professor?”

“I know it.”

* * *

“We’ll be entering the canyon from the south side,” Professor Eisner says. She’s been on edge since they left the monastery in the morning, and Dimitri fears to think of why. It’s like she’s gone right back to the hardened mercenary they met in the woods: she’s barely spoken, and the few times she did, it was to discuss battle plans. “It may be dangerous to enter in large groups, but none of you are to approach the bandits on your own, understood?”

“Understood,” Dimitri calls, as his peers offer their own affirmations. He exchanges a worried glance with Mercedes, who has a furrow in her brow as she clutches her staff to her chest. To see Professor Eisner so worried is… jarring, at best. She’s easily the most powerful instructor at Garreg Mach, in terms of both power and skill. What lies ahead in that canyon that scares her so much?

And if it scares  _ her, _ then what do they have in store?

But Dimitri has faced off those bandits before, and though he was certainly caught off the guard the first time, a month of training under Professor Eisner can’t have done more harm than good. He has to trust in himself, trust that he can overcome any obstacle thrown at him and any blade that comes near him, trust that he can take their heads off their shoulders before they can even reach him—

He is strong. He mustn’t falter.

“We’ll take a break here,” Professor Eisner announces, and the whole procession comes to a screeching halt. Dimitri looks over the heads of some of his peers and finds that they’re almost at the edge of the woods—the canyon must be . They’ve been walking nonstop since leaving the monastery, after all, and it wouldn’t bode well to enter a battle while exhausted.

And exhausted they most certainly are: a few of his peers sit in various heaps around the road, nursing sore feet and growling stomachs with quietly-shared bandages and candies. Professor Eisner reaches into her chalk-lined pocket and hands out pieces of colourful Novis Taffy to everyone, then retreats behind a tree and absentmindedly peels open one of her own, swirled in purple and green.

Dimitri frowns as he watches her disappear, only barely visible by her sword left leaning against the tree. “Dedue,” he says, wincing when his friend immediately stands on attention, “can you check in with the rest of the Lions, make sure they’re all well rested?”

“Of course, your Highness.”

“And then get some rest yourself,” he adds, reaching to pat Dedue on the shoulder. “Fatigue is a heavy burden to carry in a battle. I wouldn’t want to lose one of my closest friends because I let him walk into an ambush while not at his best.”

Dedue offers a small smile. “I’m certainly not deserving of such a title,” he insists, even as he returns the gesture. “I’ll go check on the Lions. You should also sit a while, your Highness, while we still have the chance to.”

Dimitri watches as Dedue wanders away to spectate conversations from afar, and sighs. As close as their particular cohort has gotten, it’s still a struggle to reconcile unity among in some aspects. There’s definitely still an element of uneasiness he can only hope that Professor Eisner has a solution in the works.

“Professor,” he says, approaching her tree. She’s still nibbling her piece of taffy; he’s long since eaten his. "Have you been resting well?”

“As well as I feasibly can,” she says absentmindedly. In the deft twist of her fingers to wrap the candy back up, Dimitri spots the letters spelling out  _ MOON MOSS _ in Valentian script. “I hope I haven’t scared you and your classmates too much.”

“If this is all but a farce to keep us on our toes, perhaps it is a bit unnecessary,” he tells her, but it doesn’t clear the fog in her eyes. “Professor, if there’s something we should know about this upcoming battle, you must tell us before we enter it.”

“That’s the thing. I would love nothing more than to tell you all that I can before we walk in there.” She sighs, pressing her palm to her forehead. “But what can I tell you? That there are archers stationed across the canyonside and that the head of the bandits is going to tell you to “die like a good little rich kid”? No. Every battle is another surprise. I am your teacher, Mr. Blaiddyd. All of you. That means I have a duty to make sure you all survive this, and it pains me to be unable to warn you of the dangers ahead.”

She shoves the last of her candy in her pocket. “But I have faith in all of you,” she says, and this time there’s a kind of stubborn clarity in her gaze, a fire that refuses to be extinguished. “We’ve faced these bandits before, and that was before I put you all through paint spars.”

Dimitri smiles. “Yes, the paint spars have certainly been beneficial to our training thus far. And you may have faith in us, Professor, but we all have faith in you as well. There is no doubt that we’ll emerge victorious with you leading us.”

“Thank you, Mr. Blaiddyd. It's an honour to hear that you consider me with such high esteem." She brings her knee up to her chest; Dimitri tries not to stare as she undoes a buckle behind her knee guard, revealing a band of well-worn leather holding it in place. "I should get this replaced once we return to the monastery," she says, frowning. "I didn't realize it had gotten so worn out lately."

"That may be a byproduct of the laps you had us run around the monastery the other day."

"Or a warning that I should get it fixed before it falls off during a battle and leaves my knee exposed." She tugs the leather back through the metal loops and secures the knee guard in place, straightening her leg out experimentally to test the fit. Her knee clicks, and she winces, bringing her feet back in. A dig of her heels, and she's standing once more, leaving Dimitri scrambling to catch up. "Thank you for reminding me, Mr. Blaiddyd."

"Of what?" he asks, but it doesn't carry, and Professor Eisner is already striding into the middle of the scattered class, giving her sword a good few swings as she finds a good rock to stand on.

"Can everyone hear me?" she says, sweeping the area with a look. "We're about to head into our first real mission. I cannot manage all twenty-four of you at all times, so I expect you to carry some sense of autonomy while we're out there. The canyon opens into a chokepoint. We're going to storm it as a group, and once we are past it, one group at a time, we are going to divide and conquer. I will immediately head to the far west; I want each group to follow accordingly.

"We're going to win this," she says with so much confidence that it makes Dimitri confident too. "We outnumber these bandits, and by far I know that all of you have more than enough skill to show them what you're made of. Today is  _ your _ day, and I want it to be yours to take."

_ Is this what it is, _ he thinks,  _ to be a leader? To inspire others in such a powerful way? She's truly an inspiration beyond the classroom and the battlefield. _

Professor Eisner gives the gathered class one last look, no doubt seeing their gaunt faces and determined smiles. "Any last questions?" She hops off the rock and turns towards the canyon, cutting through the air with a twirl of her sword. With her jacket billowing behind her like a cape, she really does look like some hero of folklore, a scion of the Goddess herself sent to protect Zanado from the greedy whims of men. "Then let's get to it."

And they all follow her out of the woods into the light, towards their promised victory.

* * *

“You understand that these bandits cannot be left unchecked,” Rhea murmurs, as though they are in the cathedral, where her voice will carry, and not in her private chapel. Byleth has only been here a few times, and the stained-glass triptych of the Goddess watching over Fódlan has never sat well with her. “While it is one issue for them to be traipsing around freely in Zanado…”

“It would be politically unsound to allow a would-be assassin of the Imperial princess, royal prince and future grand duke to run off.”

“Precisely.” Rhea seems proud of her judgement. “I fear the recent rise in bandit attacks across Fódlan may have much to do with this group. Their activity seems to be primarily responsive to others. Perhaps once this dastardly Kostas is vanquished, the Knights of Seiros can return from their deployments.”

Byleth purses her lips. “I presume my father will not be able to join me.”

“No, he will not.” If anything, Rhea looks surprised that her next point has already been predicted. “This is a learning opportunity, Byleth Eisner, for you and your students. Your father is impressive in battle, but you mustn’t rely on him for support. You understand that.”

“Of course.”

“There is a battalion stationed near Zanado, the ones who found the bandits’ hideout. Should the need arise, you may request them to join you.” Rhea smiles at her, painted lips only barely concealing sharpened teeth. “That said, this is a critical mission, dear heart. You cannot take all your students—perhaps one class at most. I’ve asked some of the clergy and my Knights to take on whichever students you choose not to bring for their own missions.”

“I’ll bring my nine o’clock class, then.”

Rhea raises an eyebrow. “Your class with the highest average grade,” she muses, “as well as the three house leaders and their inner circles, all of whom were leaders during the mock battle of last month’s mission.” She puts a feather-light hand on Byleth’s shoulder, but her pulse still thunders with the weight of a thousand years. “I understand that you may favour that class, but you are a teacher first and a servant to royalty second. You cannot give all your attention to them.”

Byleth stares right back at her with stubbornly blank eyes. “This is a real mission, and they are my most competent class. I risk returning with less students than I left with if I take any of my other classes.”

“Very well.” Rhea pats her shoulder twice; it no longer feels like a friendly gesture. “I’ll inform the rest of the instruction team of your decision.”

She leaves with a swish of her robes, and Byleth is left not-so-alone in the chapel facing a wildly-inaccurate portrait in stained glass and its subject in spirit. “Back to Zanado we go,” she murmurs.

Sothis’s reflection in the glass is so much smaller than the depiction of her.  _ “Back to what? A ruin? The remains of a home?” _ She laughs bitterly, tiny hand pressed against the glass palm of the Goddess in the triptych.  _ “All that trouble, to protect what might as well be a grave. For all her years, she really…” _

She doesn’t finish the thought, and Byleth doesn’t expect her to. “It is still… holy ground, in the eyes of the Church.”

_ “Of course. They don’t know what it once was.” _

When Sothis turns around, her haunted gaze sends a shock right down into Byleth’s bones.  _ “No one does anymore. Not even you.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as we speak i am fistfighting my course selection and enrollment. it was extremely unsexy of my institution to not have enough classes for a required course. i can only rest knowing that someone in charge of logistics at Garreg Mach (probably Seteth) will ensure that this doesn't happen there  
> do you ever think about Sothis and her thoughts on this religion that her daughter supposedly built around her? because i do, a lot. i don't have a lot of brain cells and i use all of them to contemplate fictional religions  
> the flavour of moon moss corresponds to rosemary, which is Byleth's favourite taffy!


	16. out of the uncanny canyon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mission is completed, talks are had, and sandwiches are consumed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW violence, named character death, lethal poison. Take care.

Not many people know that Garreg Mach has a set of dungeons. During eras past, it was very briefly the seat of the Adrestian Empire—for barely a generation—and as such is outfitted with hidden facilities befitting an emperor.

But Byleth knows. Four lifetimes in these hallowed halls has left her with an understanding of the intricacies of the monastery than no one, save maybe Rhea, can match. With torch in one hand and mass robes in the other, she slips past the darkened library, peering past each row of books to make sure none of her students are still awake, a regular patrol not unlike the clergy.

(At least, that’s what her excuse is, should anyone find her here.)

The stairwell to the crypt is artistically hidden behind several tapestries in the cathedral’s storage room _(once a throne room, now an epitaph to a living god)_ , but Byleth is able to pass her flame underneath without torching the fabric. Not even the guards approach her; she took great precaution in acquiring a set of mass robes to carry around for this exact purpose, though it really does defeat the point when she unceremoniously dumps them on a table in the storage room.

Green mist floats through the crypt, where very few tombs are laid. It’s still a distance off from the Holy Tomb, but Byleth can feel the pull of the Sword of the Creator all the same, feels it through the earth and in her very bones. It calls to her in song-tones, a siren of the depths just as it’s silent in the depths. Her breath falters in her chest, and her path wanders.

 _Resist,_ Sothis whispers. _You have a purpose here._

She does. She opens the trapdoor behind the tomb of one Liana Fitzpatrick, and descends, lower and lower and lower into the heart of the mountains. The ancient ladder creaks, but does not bow to her steps as she holds the torch ever high above her head and lands on stone ground.

For her own comfort of mind, she looks around the corner. The door to the outside is unguarded, now that Garreg Mach has no official use for a dungeon. All the better for her, after all—it’ll be easier for her to clean up her job in the night, once she’s done.

She turns. Kostas is still bound around the wrists in his cell, though he’s sat up since she deposited him there. Getting him back wasn’t hard when she had a few of her father’s mercenaries helping her; it was making sure that none of her students realized he was still alive that was difficult. He looks like he’s about to bite her when her confident stride comes to a halt in front of him.

“You might be wondering,” she says, “why I went through the trouble of hauling you back here.”

* * *

There’s little masking the thunder of footsteps through the canyon, so they storm instead. In another life, mud might have sloshed at their heels with each footstep; in this one, the sounds echoing through the canyon are those of boots crunching through dry rock. They clutch their weapons like lost children clinging to their ragged toys, and with each leap they take to match pace with their professor, a little more of that pre-battle confidence fades away.

It’s battle. Who wouldn’t be nervous? The first time Sylvain got into a real fight, not one that was two parts play to one part yelling, he walked in unarmed and barely walked out. He remembers the maid’s frustration as she cast healing spell after healing spell on his bloodied fingers, and the agony the next day when his fingernails started to grow back. He’d been maybe ten at the time, old enough to know whose knuckles were in his face but too young to know why.

Sylvain is nineteen now, and knows how to shield his face in a fight, knows how to batter a fist away with a lance long before it can reach him, knows why Miklan had hated him so much but not _how,_ how could you hate a child so young and with such conviction without hating yourself a little, too? He can throw most soldiers in their prime and twirl a spear overhead and tumble off a galloping horse safely, but try as he may, he’ll never understand what drives hatred so strong and so deeply ingrained.

Fódlan has a chronic thief problem. It was inevitable in a society that rewards the triumphant conqueror with so much. Everybody and their mother thinks they can rise above their oh-so humble roots if only they kill and kill and kill, except the only thing that comes from that is a pile of dead bodies. Nemesis took Fódlan and Seiros took it back, but the storybooks never talk about the casualties, the buried and the weeping, and they never will.

To some degree, Sylvain figures Professor Eisner is aware of this, aware of the atrocities that haunt her past profession. He’s met mercenaries before, hired by this lord or that count or even his own father. They’ve all been cut from that same brusque material that made Miklan vanish in the middle of the night. Where is it appropriate to draw that line, to separate those who make a living out of killing and those who live to kill?

“Sylvain,” Ingrid barks, and he tears himself back into reality, catching an errant sword across the shaft of his spear. Beside him, Annette is slamming every spell she knows, dancing between the flashes of Sylvain’s spear and Ingrid’s as they push the thieves back, one ruthless swing after another. Sylvain lunges into a jab as a fireball hurtles under his arm and splatters into embers and ashes on rocky ground. The thief swears loudly, bats Sylvain’s spear aside, and goes for Annette instead.

Everyone knows that the sooner you take out the mages, the sooner you can end the fighting in your favour. It’s not so much a dirty tactic as it is common knowledge; with magic comes the promise of healing, of flames that won’t die and wind that slices skin. You save yourself a lot of trouble—and a lot of men—by taking the mages out first. Still, the way Annette’s eyes go wide when the sword comes crashing down at her, and the blood-curdling scream that escapes her lips, wring Sylvain’s stomach out like a wet towel.

He steps in with a yell, putting himself between Annette and the blade still stained with her blood. The thief might be looking for an opening, but Sylvain is tall and his spear clears a wide silver arc around him. Steel clatters on armor, shifts, and slices into fabric and flesh. The thief staggers back, sword arm down, and Sylvain bares his teeth. “Open wide,” he shouts, and swings the spear overhead into the function of the thief’s neck and shoulder. A kick to the chest to wrench his spear out, and the man goes flying and doesn’t get up.

A short distance away, Ingrid is locked in a deadly spar with the other thief, spear against axe. She flitters in and out like the flap of a pegasus’s wings, and Sylvain counts the beats, _one, two,_ like he’s waiting for his turn to jump in while skipping rope, and joins the fray. Ingrid doesn’t like it when people interfere in her fights, has never liked it; he dances just behind her, letting her know that he’s here to back her up.

It’s better than leaving her alone in the end, because it takes both of them to take the man down. The thief is brutally fast but Ingrid is far faster, and her spear tears into his axe arm like it’s made of frost. The axe clatters away, and Sylvain sweeps it away in time for Ingrid to take a running start and batter the man into oblivion.

He turns instantly. “Annette,” he yells, as if she’s miles away and not sitting against the canyon wall just behind him. “How’re you holding up?”

She’s got half a bottle of vulnerary potion clenched between her teeth; the rest of it has been drizzled over the cut in her side, and by the looks of it, the worst of it has started to close up. “I’ll be fine,” she says, even as she winces and blood spreads across her clothes. “Sylvain—”

“You’re going to need to cauterize that.” He kneels down next to her, hands seeming all at once too big. “This might hurt for a second.”

Annette freezes, and then nods. He pictures the sigil in his mind’s eye, and the flame springs to life at his fingertips like a lit torch. When he swipes it across the wound, Annette writhes, nearly tearing a hole into Sylvain’s uniform with her iron grip, but it’s over quickly. With a little luck and a bit of reparative healing magic once they get back to the monastery, it won’t even scar. The vulnerary potion on the wound and the rest that she’s drunk should keep her in one piece until then.

“Can you stand?” At her nod, Sylvain hauls her to her feet. “Can’t have our loveliest lady down on the battlefield, after all.”

“Stop accousting her, Sylvain,” Ingrid scolds. Her spearhead has broken off its shaft; a shame, since she actually liked the balance on that one. “I see Mercedes’s group over there, we can go find her.”

“I’ll be—” Annette’s eyes go wide, and that’s all the warning that Sylvain gets before the thief clambers to his feet and comes swinging, and the blow is coming for Sylvain’s exposed back—

But Professor Eisner is already there, and even though Sylvain’s shoulder blades ache with the weight of a phantom axe she deflects the hit in a single fluid motion. She whirls around, and Sylvain can only barely register that her blade is already bloodied before it goes blindingly high into the air and comes crashing down on the man’s neck. He falls apart in pieces, and she follows through with the motion, bringing her sword back close to herself.

“Are the three of you okay?” she asks. Ingrid nods mutely, eyes wide; Annette’s half-formed sigil fades and she closes her tome. “The work’s not done yet. If you need healing, Linhardt and some others are nearby.”

And then she’s gone just as quickly as she came. Sylvain catches the sight of her putting herself between Lysithea and a straying arrow, and the tarnished silver of her sword as it seeks out the archer. She turns into a teal blur against the stripes of canyon stone, shielding their peers from danger. _Ashen Demon, indeed._

Sylvain doesn’t stop staring until Ingrid yells his name again and drags him back into the battle.

* * *

As she nocks another arrow, Bernadetta decides that she’s going to retire after this.

No more Officers Academy, no more fighting, nor more leaving her room. She’s going to run away and start a new life in a backwater village somewhere in central Leicester. They usually don’t judge accents there, and if she’s quick about it, she might be able to bring all her books with her and publish them under a pseudonym.

Another arrow whistles past her by mere inches, and she yelps, stumbling back. Of course, retiring is wholly dependant on her _surviving_ this battle, which she sincerely does not think she will. A heart attack might do her in before any weapon does.

How do _any_ of her peers do it? She sees the telltale signs of Petra’s whirlwind braid and the flicker of Hubert’s flames, and even Linhardt’s healing sigils here and there. How can they move at all when every step could put them in harm’s way and every breath could get them killed?

“Breathe, Bernie,” she whispers, mostly to herself. She’s safe for now behind this rock, but the moment she steps out it’ll be a different story altogether. Professor Eisner may have faith in her sniping skills, but none of that matters if she gets axed before she can even fire.

Her bow and arrow are in her hands. She can do this. Just one shot, one shot where it matters. Bernie can do this. Bernie’s going to help her classmates out and stay alive. Bernie’s not going to freeze up when her classmates might need her arrows in this battle.

And yet, the more she tells herself to move, the less she does. The hollow fear in her stomach turns to vinegar and seeps into her bones, stilling her in her tracks. Something like a giant lump has lodged in her chest, and every breath she heaves hurts. The adrenaline that had kept her going up until now poisons her slowly, drowning her in the dirt and stone of the battlefield.

The ground at her feet turns overcast, and what's left of Bernadetta's breath hitches in her throat, stillborn in motion. "No, stay back! Leave me alone," she whimpers, the arrow falling from her hands. "A-and if you're going to kill me, just be done with it quickly-!"

Then the shadow recedes, and someone crouches beside her. "Bernadetta," says the low voice that belongs to Dedue. She hasn't actually had the courage to talk to him in class yet, and she's not sure why he would do it now. "Can you open your eyes, or do you need a moment to breathe first?"

"I—" she gulps. "A moment would be good."

She doesn't move, but neither does he. "In," he says quietly, and on instinct she draws in a painfully sharp breath. "Out. In. Out."

Like a fish out of water, Bernadetta gasps and opens her eyes. Dedue is crouched about a metre away, giving her more than enough personal space while being close enough to be heard. "Can you stand?" he asks.

She shakes her head _no._ "They'll take my head off if I do. Or they'll put three arrows in the back of my head."

Something like amusement flickers in Dedue's otherwise stony expression. "I assure you, there is nothing of the sort to fear. Our peers have taken out all the archers but one, and that one archer is a significant distance away. The majority of the fighting has been carried out away from where we currently are."

He offers a hand, palm up. His calluses are very different from hers, placed in the open unlike her blisters hiding in the creases of her fingers. "That archer has been causing our peers a lot of trouble," he says. "Leonie is not far away from us. We can take that archer out together."

Bernadetta exhales slowly, cheeks puffed out. Her fingers grasp for that fallen arrow in the dirt. "Alrighty. Bernie's got this."

She pushes herself to her feet, and doesn't flinch when Dedue follows behind her, axe already raised protectively.

Leonie's running low on arrows already, while Bernadetta's quiver is still mostly untouched. "Hey Bernie," she yells, "we could really use your sharpshooting right now. There's a guy raining arrows down at us on that cliff, and none of us can get him." To Dedue, she flashes a grin that Bernadetta can't quite interpret.

"I'll shield you both," he says, stepping in front as Bernadetta hands Leonie a handful of arrows. "Let's not waste time."

Throughout the canyon, it seems their classmates are taking on the thieves in steady fashion. A few of them are still locked in frantic duels, blade crossing blade, sending echoes of shrieking metal rattling through the canyon. Far over the swinging lances and dancing aether, Bernadetta spots the cliff where the last archer must be hiding; it's angled brutally upward, leaving them at a disadvantage. She sees several of Ashe's arrows littered at the base of the cliff, some snapped from the impact.

"We can't shoot from the base," Leonie says, as if reading her thoughts. "I can probably get him from… twenty yards?"

"Twenty yards is good," Bernadetta says.

Even with Dedue leading the charge, they can't move too quickly. Every other step toes the line into some other spar, and several times Bernadetta feels her hair stand on end as a stray spell zings misses her by—well, a hair. There are people yelling, blending together into an upper harmonic and resonating with the clashing of blades, and with every new voice added it wrenches her heart a little harder.

But then Leonie bumps her bow lightly the way she does during practice, and Dedue looks over his shoulder to make sure they're still there, and the worst of it goes away.

"I'm going to give it a go," Leonie shouts. The midday sun hugs the arc of her bow as she raises it toward the cliff, aiming at the dark splotch above the rivers of rock. The muscles in her arm go taut as she pulls the bowstring back impossibly far, then farther still. "I've got you," she mutters, and lets loose.

The arrow sails high, higher, and thuds into the cliff face. "We're too close," she yells. "We need to back up."

Then Dedue yells, and an arrow sprouts from his shoulder except it's not an arrow, it's a crossbow bolt and Bernadetta is going to be sick just looking at it. "Oh, for the love of—" Leonie slings her bow around her waist and draws her sword, putting herself in front of Dedue before another thief can take advantage of his injury. Their blades clash like thunder, and Leonie grits her teeth. "Bernadetta, you gotta take that crossbow out!"

"I—" She throws a desperate glance at Dedue. He looks like he's in pain, having sunk to one knee as he clutches the wound, but beyond that there's fire. Slowly, shuddering, he forces himself back to his feet and picks up his axe again, arm hanging limply at his side as he faces the cliff face again to shield her. _Do it again,_ he seems to be telling the archer. _I dare you._

If he can get up again after that, then Bernadetta's not going to let him down. She closes her eyes, and she's back on the range at the monastery. It's late afternoon and classes have ended, and no one lingers behind to watch her sink arrow after arrow into the target. _Bernie can do this,_ she tells herself, over and over again until something in her, however small, believes it.

She opens her eyes. Tips the bow up, higher than Leonie did. Tugs the bowstring back, further than she's ever dared to. There's a little wind sigil engraved on the inside curve of her bow; she'd never understood why until now. Its power thrums through her bones, flooding out the paralyzing fear. Blinding sunlight bathes her whole as she grips tighter, even though the cord is digging into her fingers and making them bleed, but Dedue bled for her and Leonie is bleeding for her too—

She lets go of the bowstring, and the arrow sails, sails, sails, and strikes the bullseye.

* * *

“She did it!” Raphael yells, and a cheer goes up. “Bernadetta took out the archer on the cliff!” He grins at Dorothea, whose exhaustion seems to drop away in an instant. Her fingertips are still trickling blood and marred with webs of lightning from her near-endless spellcasting, but her grim smile never fades. “Let’s go!”

“We’re not out of the woods just yet,” Dorothea reminds him. “C’mon, big guy, there’s still fights left to end.”

She pats him on the shoulder with her good arm, and rushes on. There’s been a bit of a haze in her eyes for a while now; Raphael isn’t sure whether it’s because of the adrenaline from fighting, or something else entirely. He turns to Mercedes on his other side, and she gives him a weary smile that seems to run the same.

It’s not the fight that’s wearing them down. Raphael’s seen both Dorothea and Mercedes spar for far longer than this in class, and they’ve all done massive laps around the entire monastery grounds before. Even though they’re still students, they’re still adequate fighters.

No, it’s a life that burdens their hearts. Raphael feels it too, hears the screams of the terribly outnumbered bandits around them and then some. No matter how much of a threat these bandits are, surely they’re still just bandits? Petty thieves, the lot of them—none of whom deserve the death sentence.

But then he remembers Claude’s steely expression and Edelgard’s furrowed brow when Professor Eisner gave them the mission briefing, and figures there must be more to these thieves than they’re letting on.

The last man they fought went down spitting and cursing, and drove his knife into Ferdinand’s leg twice before Mercedes bashed him over the head with her staff and Lysithea left him steaming in a cloud of Miasma. It was only luck that the knife didn’t knick any arteries, but Mercedes had barely stabilized the wound when the archer on the cliff had started picking them off with a crossbow.

Dorothea now sports a gnarly crossbow bolt in her side, which Mercedes has advised against removing for the time being. The tome in her hand threatens to fall out with every step she takes. Mercedes looks like she could fall asleep on the spot and never wake up. She pulls the last of Professor Eisner’s gifted taffy from her pocket and downs it all as though it will give her a little more energy.

Raphael breathes. Thanks to Bernadetta’s shot, he can afford to do so.

The next thief they come across is far faster than Dorothea’s spells, running the moment he’s spotted, but Raphael ducks in front of her and feels the clang of a knife blade against his axe. He grunts and pushes back, and hears a yelp as his next swing slices through chunky armor. When he follows through with the hit, the blade of his axe is tinted red; he takes a moment to regrip, and charges in again.

The thief screams and wrestles away, dropping his knife with a clatter and turning to run only to be caught in the web of Dorothea’s Thunder. “Mercy,” he gasps, “p-please, have mercy, I didn’t do anything wrong—!”

His sentence is cut off with a scream as the outer curve of Raphael’s axe sinks into his arm, hitting bone. Raphael wrenches the weapon away and stares at the man (the boy, really) collapsing to his knees. 

“I don’t want to die,” the thief whispers, voice weary and wracked with pain. “Please. I ain’t done anything bad, I swear. I just want to go home to my family.”

“Raphael, what are you waiting for?” Dorothea says, running up with her tome open to a fresh page. Her eyes go wide as she sees the injured man at their feet. “Oh, saints, that brute has _children_ working for him?”

“I’m not a child!” the thief shouts, and immediately doubles over groaning. “I’m seventeen, I’m grown enough…”

And boy, isn’t that a sentiment that Raphael shares. Seventeen, ready to take on the world, having a family to provide for. How cruel life must be, that they ended up on opposite sides, that Raphael’s story will be told and this boy’s will end here because he fell in with the wrong lot in the hopes that it might be enough to put dinner on the table. Raphael’s always been bulky, thanks to having the financial basis to eat well and keep his family fed; this boy is thin and spindly beneath the armor, bony chest rising and falling erratically in beat with the blood streaming from his arm.

He looks to Dorothea, who seems to be just as horrified as he is. “We need to get Mercedes,” he says, and she nods and disappears back into the fight. For now, he squats next to the boy, who is less of a boy and more of a peer. In another life, he might have been one of their classmates at the Officers Academy. It might have been Raphael with that knife, stealing and thieving from nearby villages.

“I’m going to die here,” the boy mutters, “and then my brothers and sisters and my grandmother are going to starve. I shouldn’t have joined these good-for-nothing bandits, all they’ve done is get swindled out of their own pockets and fight the wrong people.”

“I’m seventeen, and I have a sister too,” Raphael says, and the boy looks up. “She’s real sweet and she’s all I’ve got left in this world.” He offers his best attempt at a grin, widening it with the thought of Maya’s laughter. “What’s your name?”

“... Aaron.”

“I’m Raphael. Nice to meet you.”

At this moment, Dorothea comes crashing through the battlefield, Mercedes in tow. There’s a splash of blood on Mercedes’s cheek, but her face is still resolute. “That awful, awful man,” she says, voice pinched high in rage as she kneels, “sending _children_ to do his dirty work for him.”

“Not a child,” Aaron groans. “I’m seventeen.”

“And I’m twenty-two, so I daresay you still have quite a bit of growing left to do.” She scans him over once more and exhales. “Dorothea, sweetheart, I’m going to need you to hold his arm steady so I can heal the muscles properly.”

“Of course.”

Aaron stares bleakly at Dorothea’s thin hands as she presses one under his loose elbow and the other on his shoulder. “Why are you doing this for me?” he asks. “Aren’t you disobeying your captain’s orders by doing this?”

 _He thinks Professor Eisner is our captain,_ Raphael thinks, followed by the more horrifying thought of _he thinks we’re knights._ The thought seems to hit Dorothea and Mercedes at the same time, too—not Aaron’s concern that they’re disobeying orders, but rather the fact that they’re in the same position as him, children being made to fight the wars of their forebears, never knowing the full story or who the man on the other side is.

Mercedes recovers first. “Raphael, can you block us from view?” she asks, and he does immediately, rising to his full height and casting the rest of them in shade. “This may hurt briefly.”

A green glow emanates from her staff, and Aaron fidgets and cries out as it swallows him whole. The wound on his arm closes up, as does the one across his chest. “Just a bit more,” Mercedes whispers, and Raphael can’t really tell but there might be tears welling at the corners of her eyes. “Almost done, darling.”

The last patch of reddened skin on his arm knits itself back together, and the green glow dissipates instantly. “Can you stand?” Dorothea asks, letting Aaron lean on her as he stumbles to his feet. “Oh, you should find your knife. You can’t go unarmed.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to fight me three-to-one,” he says, staggering back. “I-I can’t. Not now.”

“Of course not,” Mercedes says. “Dorothea, do you know any flashbang spells? We can buy time for you to escape.”

Dorothea gives her a thin smile. “Oh, one or two.”

“I don’t understand,” Aaron says. “Why are you doing this for me? Surely you’re going to be punished for this by your superiors!”

“We won’t,” Raphael says. It sounds much warmer in voice than it did in his head, and if only briefly, he believes it himself. “Get home to your siblings and take good care of them.”

“Keep them safe, and away from shady folks like these,” Mercedes adds. “There’s a lovely little town to the west—Remire Village. The people there are kind, and the cleric can heal you much better than I can. Once we set off these flashbangs, you’re going to run there, okay?”

“You’re going to live,” Dorothea says, the beginnings of a sigil starting to swirl in her hand. “Your family—they need you alive far more than our superiors need you dead. Mercedes?”

Then Raphael is blinded in a shower of a million sparkling suns, and when he can see again Aaron is gone, and the knife that had been sitting in the sand is missing too.

Mercedes crumples like paper; he dives to catch her before she can hit the ground, but she’s already unconscious, her staff slipping from her limp hands. The flashbang spell must have used the last of her magic reserves, which were already greatly depleted from her continuous healing.

Dorothea picks up the fallen staff. “Fight’s not over yet,” she whispers. “But a life saved is a life saved.”

 _How many more,_ Raphael thinks, and says nothing as he follows her back into the fighting.

* * *

There are some not-nice things about being a healer: people come to Marianne screaming and crying with blood pouring from their broken bodies, and she’s the only thing left between them and death. Really, she doesn’t know why they’re coming to her to save their lives, not when she can barely save her own.

There are also nicer things: when a bandit comes after her, she barely even has time to shift her grip on her staff to an offensive one before three of her classmates step in front of her defensively and start to whale on the man. Despite the inevitable post-battle exhaustion that will leave her practically comatose over the weekend, she has no qualms that everyone has her back.

(And really, she doesn’t deserve it, but there’s no time to tell them that when they’re bleeding out before her.)

“Don’t strain it,” she tells Dimitri, moving the staff over the gap in his forearm. She can still see the sword slice through his skin in slow motion, the shaft of his spear falling just short of blocking the blade. The wound closes up far too slowly for comfort, dribbling blood at the edges as Dimitri’s grip tightens and the magic knits the muscle fibres back together. “No overhand swings, if you can. It’s not fully healed yet, um, you’re going to need a stronger spell than what I have…”

“No, it’s perfectly fine.” Dimitri gives his wrist an experimental flick, and even though the scar and skin are still bloodied, he’s still in one piece and able to move. “Thank you, Marianne. Your healing is truly the epitome of the Goddess’s compassion.”

She doesn’t get it. She’s barely spoken to the crown prince since their encounter in the library, and yet he looks ever-glad to see her outside of the classroom. This particular instance could be chalked up to the fact that she’s the only healer left standing, and he had a wound the width of a dinner plate until just seconds ago, but that doesn’t explain all the other times he’s offered kind words to her in the hallways, conversing about classwork and comparing curriculums.

There’s nothing special about Marianne—not the good kind of special, anyhow. Her hands tremble when she wields her staff, and her voice trembles when she speaks to the crown prince of Faerghus, but then again it trembles when she speaks to anyone. She doesn’t know how to warn Dimitri, to get him to leave her alone before some terrible misfortune befalls him too, but the battlefield is no place to do that.

Staves, thankfully, are unaffected by her presence. At least there’s still that.

Most of the fighting is over, but there’s still sound coming from another part of the canyon, swearing and shouting and horrible, and Marianne tugs on Dimitri’s cape and stares him down just long enough to make sure he’s heard it too. “You should get some rest,” he tells her. “Your magic reserves—”

“I won’t run away,” she blurts, and it surprises her just as much as it does him, apparently. “Someone needs help, and I’m the only one left who can do it.”

She doesn’t get any time to think about it; Dimitri nods once and rushes in the direction of the shouting, and all she can do is follow close behind, each rocky step threatening to shake the staff out of her hands. They pass by a number of their peers along the way: Dorothea has commandeered Mercedes’s staff, and is running it across Dedue’s shoulder; Linhardt and Caspar are piled up against each other, the former unconscious and the latter splashed with blood; Ashe holds down a squirming Lysithea as Hilda and Felix reset her elbow. All throughout the canyon, Marianne counts the living and the dead, and the thought of who she’s missing wrenches at her heart.

Sound travels differently in the canyon, be it from the hallowed stone or from the presence of the Goddess. The yelling doesn’t even sound human anymore, distorted and warped to howl like beasts. Voices blend together like swirling tea—bitter for Edelgard, banter from Claude—

And, as it turns out, silence for Professor Eisner, holding her own against two men at once as Edelgard and Claude circle the bandit leader.

Dimitri practically growls, lance raised and ready, and Marianne sees it before he does: the exhaustion that will bring down Edelgard first and Claude after her, and the slash across Professor Eisner’s middle weeping blood. Of course Professor Eisner’s outnumbered and the obvious answer is to back her up, but one misstep and Fódlan could be down two of its future leaders. They need backup before a bandit tears them to pieces; Professor Eisner needs healing before her guts spill out of her stomach.

“I’ll help Professor Eisner,” Marianne says, and Dimitri turns to her in shock. Her words are far braver than she is, after all. “She needs a heal as soon as possible.”

“So does Claude,” he points out, and it’s only then that she notices the torn cape stained red. How is he to draw a bow with such a wide wound in his back? “We’ll have to split our manpower, regardless of how we do choose to do it.”

They don’t get to make that choice. One of the bandits rounding on Professor Eisner spots them, ducks and rolls from the arc of her sword, and charges right for Marianne. There’s barely time to react, but her hand slides down her staff, bracing against the pommel on the other end, and she raises it just in time to catch the sword swinging down on her. The blade digs a deep notch into the staff, and she pushes back with all the might in her body and jumps aside so Dimitri has room to step in front of her. “Go,” he yells, and Marianne sees the blades crossed in front of his face and runs to Professor Eisner.

Up close, the gash in her stomach is less horrific, but horrific all the same. She’s locked in a dance of swords with the other bandit, one hand splayed out over the wound as though that will staunch the bleeding. Marianne’s heart is racing and her mind is faster still, but there’s no opening for her to join the battle. She can’t heal Professor Eisner at this range, and with the speed of the duel, she can’t cast any helpful offensive spells lest they stray and hit the wrong mark.

Professor Eisner screams, voice brought visceral and high, and Marianne’s blood freezes at how much she sounds like she’s in pain, even as she brings her foot up for a well-placed kick. The bandit stumbles back, not knowing that Marianne is mere metres behind him, and in that moment she sees her chance.

She gathers all her strength, and in her mind’s eye the Nosferatu sigil twists into streams of gold, projecting into the world like blinding rays of sunlight. They sink into the bandit one at a time, and Marianne breathes with a kind of relief she didn’t know she could feel as the tension of the battle melts away, draining away the ache in her feet if only momentarily.

The bandit sinks like a rock, and over their head she sees Professor Eisner’s eyes blown wide as she stumbles forward. “I’ll heal you,” she squeaks, all comfort forgotten as she raises her staff. With the coast so clear, she has no trouble getting in range of a decent Heal spell. The gash on Professor Eisner’s stomach starts to knit itself back together. “I’m so sorry, Professor, I should have gotten here sooner—”

“Don’t apologize,” Professor Eisner says, sharp and breathless all at once. Her fingers are still sticky with blood. “You’re here, and you acted in time. Well done, Miss von Edmund.”

“Heads up,” Claude yells, breaking the moment. An arrow whistles through the air, and Marianne turns just in time to see the bandit sink again, this time with an arrow to the neck. Her heart falls, and Professor Eisner sees right through her in an instant.

“The battle’s not over. Miss von Edmund, I trust you’ll stand by?”

And really, after that all Marianne can do is watch. Professor Eisner puts herself between the bandit leader and the house leaders like slotting the last piece of puzzle in place. The man laughs; it’s an ugly noise. “Trying to protect them, are you?”

“I won’t let you hurt my students,” says Professor Eisner, resolute.

The ugly laugh turns into an uglier snarl. “You fucking brat,” he growls, “if you’re going to stand with them, why don’t you just _die_ with them, like a good little rich kid!”

In response, Professor Eisner becomes a hurricane, rushing to meet his blow with her own. Edelgard follows hot on her heels, Dimitri joining a heartbeat later. Claude dances at the edge of the battle, too close to do any real shooting but too far to wield any blades.

 _Claude._ He’s still got that gaping wound in his back, and it only widens when he fires a well-placed arrow at the bandit leader’s feet. “Claude,” Marianne calls, louder than she’d ever dare at the monastery. He gets the hint, and after another shot he runs over, still grinning as though nothing is wrong.

“I’ll be fine,” he says. His voice says otherwise. “Really. It was just a little knife in the back, nothing more.”

“Your shooting widened the wound.” She peels the bloodied cape from his back, and nearly sobs when she sees the gash. “I’m sorry, this is going to hurt.”

The green glow that washes over him is a terrible contrast against his cape, but it washes out the colour of the blood. “They’ve got the fight,” Claude murmurs, and Marianne winces. There’s still spitting and swearing in the air, indicating that they can’t call it a day and go back just yet. “It’s almost over.”

“I couldn’t do anything to make it over faster.”

Claude’s silent for a second. “Sure you did,” he says. “You got that bandit with the Nosferatu, and you healed Professor Eisner. I bet you healed a bunch of our friends, too. You did plenty, Marianne.”

The head of the staff shatters into a shower of clay bits and wood chips. The sigil stamped into the clay crumbles further when it hits the ground. Marianne stares at the splintered end of the stick in her hands as Claude turns around, looking amused. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll live. Besides, we’re gonna be back at the monastery real soon.”

Silver glints through the air, and Marianne looks up just in time to see Professor Eisner’s sword slam down on the bandit leader. He goes down, and both Dimitri and Edelgard lower their weapons and sigh in relief.

Marianne squints at the heap of man on the ground. Despite the blood that stains him, he looks like he’s simply folded over instead of broken and scrunched up, as though he’s still alive. Yes, if she gets closer, he almost looks like he’s still breathing—

“Marianne!” There are strong arms around her, and then Edelgard’s face comes into view, cutting through the haze. There’s a streak of blood across her cheekbone. “Are you uninjured? You nearly toppled over. You should be resting.”

“I am alright,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry for falling on you, Princess.”

“You clearly are not alright, for all that you cannot stay on your feet. Dimitri, Claude, a hand?”

 _They’re too kind,_ Marianne thinks. The last wisp of strength from that Nosferatu dissipates, and her knees start to falter. She can barely open her mouth, but her classmates are bearing her up, keeping her upright as raindrops start to splatter across the canyon. The rain laps at Claude’s back and Dimitri’s arm and Edelgard’s face, and it washes the unbearable heat of magic settling itself back into her bones away.

And beyond that there’s Professor Eisner, one foot planted on the dead man’s back as she stares skyward into the rain unblinking. Her sword hangs from her loose grip. Bloody water is pooling at her feet, draining off her in waves of red washing over, red like the canyon and the ground that they’ve desecrated—

Then Marianne is falling back into nothing, and the hands that hold her up are warm and too, too kind.

* * *

“You might be wondering,” the mercenary brat says, hand on hip as she approaches his cell, “why I went through the trouble of hauling you back here.”

Kostas bares his teeth at her. “Thought you were so smart, huh? Your precious little Archbishop isn’t going to like you very much when she finds me locked here.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not much of a believer, then.” She tilts her head; it does not change her stony look. “Have you been awake for long?”

“What does it fucking matter to you?”

She shrugs. “I want answers,” she says, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the cell. The rusted iron of the bars seems almost garish in front of her fragile features, too dainty and feminine for a woman who fights like dragons. “I have no intention to follow my orders from the Archbishop.”

Moonlight glints off her knife as she unsheathes it from her side. “Hands,” she says, and repeats it when he doesn’t move. “Do you want me to release you from your bindings or not?”

He scowls and moves his hands up to the bars, where she deftly cuts through the rope. His wrists ache from the burn. “What do you want?”

“Information.” By the Goddess, her stare is unnerving. She doesn’t take her eyes off him, even to sheath her knife once more. “You attacked my students—the heirs to the three thrones of this continent. I need to know why, and who you’re working for.”

“And what makes you think I’ll give that information up?”

Silence. And then, “you have a wife and child living in Enbarr.” Not bad, she’s done her research. “I imagine you’d like to get home safely to them.”

He slams his hands on the bars; she doesn’t even flinch. “If you’ve touched them—”

“Oh. No.” She blinks. It’s the first sign of expression she’s shown through this entire conversation. “They’ll be fine. I mean that the sooner you tell me what I need to know, the sooner you can leave. Get back to them, if you want.”

She leans in closer, disturbingly so, and he lurches away from the bars. “I’ve been in the mercenary business my whole life. You and your company don’t look like you just picked a random bunch of students to attack. This was something you were assigned.”

Kostas doesn’t speak. She continues. “A hit on the Imperial heiress, the prince of Faerghus and the next grand duke—it all seems a little too well-timed. You must have staked out Remire Village days if not weeks in advance. I presume you were hiding in the woods?”

“No.”

She hums. “Then where?”

“In the town. The townspeople are fucking idiots.” Was that a twitch of her eye? “The brats came out of the inn and practically walked right into us.”

“Simple and yet effective.” He must look confused as all hell, because she then clarifies: “I teach tactics and combat. Your method of ambush would make a good lesson for my students.”

“So you sicced them on my company.”

“Not entirely by choice.”

Silence hangs between them. She seems pensive, and in the moment before he can snap at her again, she reaches into her pocket and extracts a package wrapped in paper. Inside is a sandwich cut into two wedges—rye bread, two slices of cured ham, a few leaves of lettuce, all drizzled with a thin tangy sauce.

She hands half of it to him. He stares at her, and she stares right back. He takes the damn sandwich.

He lifts the sandwich to his face and gives it a good sniff. Aside from the sauce and the ham, there’s no real discernible smell. Still, he hesitates to eat it given the circumstances, despite the ache in his stomach that screams for nourishment.

“It’s untouched,” says the mercenary brat, as if reading his thoughts. “Look, I need information. You’re far more useful to me alive than dead.” As if to prove her point, she rips a chunk of the bread out and pops it in her mouth with practiced ease.

Grimacing, Kostas takes a bite. It’s a good sandwich; the ham is the good stuff that they serve to the spoiled noble children up at the Officers Academy, and the citrus of the sauce cuts through the raw bitterness of the lettuce. The bread doesn’t dry his mouth out like hardtack. Overall, it’s better than half the slop he’s been eating the last month.

It would be a good meal, if it weren’t for the fucking brat staring at him with dead, dead eyes. She keeps picking at the sandwich, and eventually lifts out a slice of ham and just eats that before setting the whole thing aside. “Your son,” she starts, “how old is he?”

“Turning seven,” he grunts.

“They get rowdy around that age.” The corner of her mouth lifts a little, as though children are an amusing topic to discuss. “Yours must be well-behaved if you’re willing to leave him for so long.”

Kostas scowls. “He’s a fucking pansy is what he is. Magic this and magic that, won’t even pick up a damn axe. And his mother goads him on!”

“Magic can’t solve everything,” the mercenary brat says, nodding. “I make sure my students are all well-rounded, so that they can never get caught off guard.”

“It’s all a bunch of bullshit being fed to us.” He gestures widely. She doesn’t react. “Name me one mage who built a country! One! Men like Wilhelm and Loog were warriors of the blade, not of this fucking priss-ass magic.” He pounds on the floor with each word, to really drive it into that little brain of hers. “It’s all lies, and it’s poisoning the boy.”

She tilts her head. “So you carried out your attack on students here, to stop us from teaching magic?”

He guffaws. “Hell, I couldn’t care less about your fucking academy. That was a job.”

“A job.”

“Yeah, masked fellow. Wears red feathers all around.” He licks his lips; the aftertaste of the lettuce is stupidly strong. “Told us he wanted the brats dead. Paid us handsomely, too, until he left us for dead.”

“Oh. You were betrayed.”

“Damn right we were! He turned tail the moment your fucking Knights of Seiros showed up.” His fist digs into the stone at the memory, bloodying his knuckles. “Told us we were going to die, and that he was looking for our replacements.”

Finally, something akin to emotion dawns on the woman’s face; her eyes widen ever so slightly on the word _replacements,_ as if only now realizing that he’s not the only one after her dumb students. “For what it’s worth,” she says, composed and stony once more, “many of your men disobeyed your orders to stand and fight. I counted at least six who escaped the skirmish unharmed.”

“Cowards, all of them,” he snaps. “It won’t be them haunting you.”

She seems to mull this over, and then stands up. “Well, this was a lovely conversation,” she says in that same lifeless deadpan. Something rattles, and then she approaches the cell with a massive rusted key. It grates in the lock as she opens it. “Exit’s that way.”

Kostas stares up at her incredulously. “You’re just going to let me go?”

She shrugs, as if this is a common occurrence. “Door’s open. I have no need to keep you here. Like you said, Archbishop Rhea isn’t going to be pleased if she finds you locked up.”

It feels too good to be true, and so when Kostas crawls to his feet, he almost hesitates to leave the damn cell. “You killed my men and hauled me back here, and now you’re just letting me go,” he reiterates. “Go show your kindness to someone else, brat.”

“I never said I was being kind.”

He passes her unfinished half of the sandwich on the way out. It’s still sitting there in the paper wrapping, lettuce dangling from the bread untouched. She’d eaten a bit of everything from the sandwich but the lettuce.

It’s still bitter on his tongue.

Kostas takes one step, and then another, and then falls to his knees as the strength drains from his body. “You,” he snarls, even though his tongue is starting to feel like lead and his eyes feel like they’re falling out of his head. “You _lied.”_

“I did nothing of the sort,” says her voice from somewhere far, far away. The leather of her boots comes into focus, and bleeds away into the night. “You, on the other hand—these are _children_ falling at your hands. The youngest of my students is fifteen. Your son is _six._ There are teenagers in your band of thieves, who you ordered to stand when I asked you to surrender peacefully. How do you find it in yourself to lay a hand on them?”

 _How do you find it in you to kill in the name of your so-called justice?_ he thinks furiously at her. As though she’s reading through him, her voice comes echoing, one last time: “I hope you find it in you to do protect instead of destroy, if we ever meet again.”

And before he can figure out what _that_ means, his face hits ancient stone, and he knows no more.

* * *

Byleth sighs. Kostas is motionless at her feet, sprawled out on all fours. _“Was that really necessary?”_ Sothis asks. Her spectral hand prods at what’s left of the sandwich, pieces of devil’s lettuce still hanging loose. A kind toxin, possibly the one that brought her down all those lives ago. _“The last thing he knew was betrayal.”_

 _It was a kinder thing to do than what he deserved,_ Byleth thinks back. _I met his wife and son two timelines ago. I couldn’t let him go back to them and let them suffer._ At Sothis’s marked silence, she raises an eyebrow. _He made his men stay and fight when I approached, even though they knew it was a hopeless battle. Would it be humane to let him lead them to their deaths a second time?_

_“This is war. No one can truly be innocent.”_

Byleth grits her teeth. _What of Nibbs and the citizens of Remire? Are they acceptable sacrifices, then? Would you have that little boy in Enbarr die at his own father’s hands?_

 _“Mmm. It just doesn’t feel right for you to act as jury, judge and executioner.”_ Sothis clicks her tongue. _“And you can speak out loud, you know. The man isn’t about to get up and listen to you monologue to thin air anytime soon.”_

 _Not him._ Byleth turns her chin back towards the passageway, imperceptible to all but the most trained eye. _Haven’t you spotted her?_

Understanding seems to dawn on Sothis in a second. _“You knew all the information that man had to offer,”_ she says. _“No wonder you were so terribly inconspicuous coming here earlier. Was it all a performance, then? An act of intimidation?”_

_A catalyst._

“Good riddance,” she says out loud, grabbing Kostas by his wrists. He’s about as heavy as she expected, but she’s carried worse—barrels, wyverns, entire nations. With a little effort, she’s able to drag him out the door, unguarded as it is. No one’s found the crater from the triangle attack incident yet, and with a little bit of creative excavation and magic, no one ever will—just as no one sees Byleth slip out into the night dragging Kostas’s body behind her; just as no one sees the door to the ancient dungeons close behind her.

Just as no one sees the ghost of a girl in crimson watch with bated breath and wide eyes, and escape up the ladder the moment that door closes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my cookies are finally out of the oven so i finally have a chance to sit down and get this chapter out, whew. this was fun to write! unfortunately it was also a moral disaster. named character deaths are always hard for me to write, even when they canonically kick the bucket. i still have no idea what i'm going to do about Jeralt and Rodrigue  
> this chapter took about two months to write, in which time i promptly used up all of the reserve chapters i had saved. fortunately i'm on the brink of finishing the next one, and i've already got plans for the one after that  
> in earlier drafts, Marianne broke her staff over a man's head and a different poison made its way into Kostas's sandwich. most of the scenes came in spurts of midnight inspiration, with the last one being composed first! don't let anyone tell you the writing process is linear, kids, because it is absolutely not  
> devil's lettuce is a plant inspired by hemlock (most famously used in the death of Socrates) and the extremely bitter lettuce from my own backyard. it is named devil's lettuce because i crowdsourced the name from my friends. i love them with all my heart but they really do share a combined one (1) brain cell.  
> special thanks to my friend Feng who, having written a 4000-word research essay on torture and its ineffectiveness in interrogation, sent me all sorts of very interesting resources on how to write Byleth during that last scene. mad props bro


	17. good graces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rainy season has begun, and the world shifts on its axis to match.

When Byleth was very young and swung her knife around more than she spoke, her father had a pet dog, if “having” the dog could be said for their situation. The border collie answered to the name Vega, and she never growled at Byleth but never came near of her own volition either—Byleth was never the one with the food, after all. Vega always ran at Jeralt’s side when they hunted, even when her muzzle turned gray and her eyes were milky. A fine dog till the very end, when she passed from her age. Byleth remembers the coarse grain of her tongue, hot and seeking out the morsels of food caught between her stubby toddler fingers.

Cats are very different from dogs. They’re temperamental creatures, though Vega was temperamental in her own right, and they demand attention and reject it all at once. They won’t be distracted with the simple toss of a ball, but a loose sheet of paper will entertain them for hours. They beg bits of food off her and throw it up on her pillow the minute her back is turned.

The cats are restless, more than Byleth. They were waiting on her bed when she got back from Zanado, though she suspects that has more to do with the rain than them really missing her.

But now, even in the quiet hum of the morning rain, they’re more agitated than usual. The monastery strays don’t always have places to go when the sky cries; some of the kinder clergy will let them wander in to mingle with the students, but once the rain stops they’re always chased right back outdoors. It’s probably one of Seteth’s orders, an attempt at maintaining some sort of order. Clearly, it doesn’t work.

Byleth catches a black blur as it makes a beeline from the edge of her desk to her bed. “You’re not going to make it all the way over,” she tells the bombay, letting it slink to the ground like liquid. “You haven’t grown wings yet. Stop trying to fly.”

Sothis laughs at this.  _ “You clearly grew up around dogs,” _ she says, combing the Siamese’s fur upwards around the ears to spike out like ridiculous tree branches. The Siamese, for its part, loafs in her lap, content to be cuddled and willing to put up with the clownery.  _ “Cats will do what they please, with or without wings." _

The bombay mewls when Byleth reaches down to scratch under its chin, and mewls louder when she gets up. There’s a creak in her knee and an ache in her stomach, from the gash that has since been properly treated and bandaged. Between her injuries and the rain, she’s had to cancel on most of her prior arrangements for the weekend, including mass, tea with Edelgard, and her planned trip to Remire. She doesn’t know when it’ll heal, but it can’t do her any good to wear a shirt that exposes the wounded area in a room with an open window.

The ragdoll is perched on the windowsill, staring out into the rain. The longest strands of its fur are caught translucent in the meagre light from outside, a halo composed of silk and light. “Are you just going to stand there all day?” she asks it, closing the window. A stray raindrop catches it on the nose; it blinks, but doesn’t move. “Alright, if you insist.”

She grabs her fishing rod from the closet. It’s a bit on the flimsier side, but the wood is flexible enough to avoid breaking, and the fishing line is braided tightly. She gives the reel an experimental turn—it’s greased on the inside, and doesn’t catch on the line. Satisfied, she throws it over her shoulder. “I’m heading to the fish pond,” she tells Sothis. The progenitor god has limits as to how far away she can manifest from Byleth, but for lazy, rainy mornings, there’s no need to stretch those limits for a fishing trip.

_ “Go ahead,” _ Sothis says, a cat in her lap and one beside her.  _ “I do not intend to move anytime soon.” _

Byleth takes one last look at her room: the desk, the bed, the chair, the closet. The child god sitting crosslegged on the bed. The three cats scattered around the room in varying degrees of comfort. The bulletin board with all the notes pinned as far up as she possibly can so the cats can’t get to it. It’s a far departure from some of the past lives she’s lived, but it’s a change she thinks she likes.

She closes the door behind her, and heads to the dock.

* * *

The class is restless before Professor Eisner shows up. It might be a side effect of the weather, given that it’s the first clear day after a weekend of rain. They’d all come back to the monastery from Zanado soaked to the bone, escorted through the rain by the Knights of Seiros who came to collect them in one piece. Even now, there are students still recovering on Professor Casagranda’s orders—Linhardt’s corner in the back is empty, and Lysithea is seated where Mercedes would be, running her fingers through Annette’s hair.

“It’s so silky,” she says, excitement cutting through the obvious pain of her splinted arm. “Oh, the lavender is so nice! Maybe I should have gotten some of that soap too.”

Annette laughs and gently tugs the loop of hair away from Lysithea’s hands. “It was Professor Eisner’s recommendation,” she says, “and she said it was her favourite, so I would have been disappointed if it  _ wasn’t _ nice. We can go again next weekend.”

“Ooh, shopping trip,” Hilda says, leaning over conspiratorially. “Do you think we could borrow some pegasi from the stables and fly there and back?”

Claude snorts. “Good luck with that. The last time I asked, I got shot down real quick.”

“That’s because you asked to borrow a wyvern, and Father Seteth thought you were going to sic it on the village!”

Before Claude can retort, the door swings open, and Professor Eisner steps in, leaving the entire class staring. 

“Good morning,” says Byleth, who does not in fact think it is a very good morning, given the ache of her knee and the sting of the poultice Manuela slapped on the gash in her stomach. “Good to see that everyone who said they were coming to class is, in fact, in class.”

Judging by the way her students are  _ still _ staring at her, it seems like they weren’t expecting her to show up in a loose black shirt and knee-length trousers with her jacket tied around her waist. Manuela insisted that she wear something a little more  _ breathable _ while she recuperates, and Byleth can’t find it in her to disagree. For maximum breathability, she’s even tied her hair up, though several strands still insist on adhering to her face. It must be the rain, she reasons.

“In regards to last week’s mission and assignment,” she announces, watching her class shrivel in their seats, “we will discuss that as a group once all your peers have recovered. I can affirm before then that I am  _ very _ pleased with your performance.” She offers the ghost of a smile, and sees them relax instantly. “However, I understand that everyone is still recovering from injuries, physical and emotional, and frankly none of us need to relive any battles anytime soon, myself included.”

She gestures at the courtyard doors and the windows. “Rainy season’s begun,” she says simply. “Can anyone tell me some key points of fighting in rain?”

A number of hands shoot up immediately. She looks through the faces, and picks one she hasn’t called on in a while. “Mr. von Bergliez?”

“You can’t see as well,” Caspar says, gesturing wildly with both hands, “with rain in your eyes all the time and all around you. There’s only so far you can see into the rain.”

“An astute observation.” Byleth reaches into her pocket, finds that her jacket has fallen to the floor, and kneels to scoop it up. Chalk now retrieved, she writes  _ obscured vision _ on the board in large letters. “Mr. Gloucester?”

“Rain may force you to change your grip on your weapon and cause general discomfort while fighting.”

“That as well, though I will only note the grip for now. Something to add, Miss Pinelli?”

Leonie grins. “Mud,” she says. “You have to watch your footing in the rain, or you’ll slip and flip.”

“I appreciate the rhyme. Yes, you lose traction when the ground beneath your feet turns to mush, or you’ll be washing more than bloodstains out of your clothes.” Byleth sighs. “I really have to question the Academy’s choice in uniforms. I get that white dress shirts are easy to standardize and the most readily available for students, but they’re also hell to wash any stains out of.”

“Ooh, is that why you always wear black, Professor?”

“A little.” She glances down at her shirt, which still has telltale splotches from old battles that never washed out. This was one of her first attempts at tailoring her own clothes, and it shows in the messy seams and frayed hems. “I’ll tell you what. If all of you can put a one-page report on what you need to watch out for most in the rain on my desk ten minutes before the end of class, I’ll tell you the other reason why.”

That gets them going. Papers and inkwells are rapidly extracted from bags and shared, and soon the chatter is replaced by pens scratching away. Satisfied, Byleth drapes her jacket across the back of her chair, pulls her ponytail tighter, and (for what might be the first time ever) sits down  _ in the chair at her desk. _ The Knights of Seiros were kind enough to provide her with reports of her other classes, totalling nearly thirty pages for her to read.

She’s only two pages in when students start putting things on her desk, and she realizes she cannot use this method to motivate her other classes—they’re not constantly jumping to learn every little thing about their professor, not like her nine o’clock class. As it turns out, only this class watches her with starry eyes, following in her wake like a pack of lost ducklings. Rhea berates her for playing favourites, but is it really her fault?

_ (“Yes,” _ Sothis tells her teasingly,  _ “absolutely your fault that they’ve imprinted on you.”) _

All the reports are in within twenty minutes, and she counts and double-counts them to be sure. “Good work,” she says, and hears the collective exhale of relief. “Now, what was it I was going to tell you?”

“You were going to tell us why you always wear all black, Professor,” Dimitri says politely. “Aside from the obvious advantage of stain removal, of course.”

Lorenz frowns. “While your choice of colour remains timeless, I fear your stylistic sense may be rather outdated,” he frets. “Especially your jacket, with its sleeve cutouts, and your tights…”

“Oh, the lace ones.” She scooches her chair back and hoists herself up on the desk, the soles of her shoes hanging dangerously close to the papers stacked all around. “Those weren’t… entirely by choice. I do own a few pairs of simple trousers for training, and more recently a walking skirt, but my usual attire was a recent acquisition of only a few years ago.”

_ A few years ago, _ she says, when in her mind’s eye it’s been over a decade. The words come as she speaks them, though, all the memories flooding back in an instant. “My father’s company had a very high-profile client, the couturier Kara Snow.” A few students utter sounds of recognition. “We were escorting her from Fhirdiad to Enbarr for… I believe it was a festival.” She pokes at the hem of her trousers, at the knee guard still faithfully holding on. “I’d just hit a growth spurt, and my clothes didn’t fit quite right, and Lady Kara found it utterly disgraceful.”

Byleth inhales and pitches her voice up, the way the couturier had spoken. “A young lady should not be hindered by the clothes on her body,” she minces. It sounds worse in her everyday monotone. Several of her students instantly explode in laughter. “Ahem. Don’t expect more of that. Anyhow, on the road she made me a set of clothes in that year’s style. I suppose when she meant that my previous garments were a hindrance, she was thinking of my marriageability.” She shrugs. “It was more comfortable than what I’d worn before, so I kept them.”

The class breaks into light applause, and she sketches a mock bow from her seat on her desk. Her knee clicks as she sits back up. “I’ve done most of my own tailoring in the years since,” she says. “The tights aren’t very practical, but they stretch decently, and afford me the comfort I need when necessary. The material they’re made of is easy to wash out, so I don’t have to worry about blood or mud all the time.”

She whirls her pen between her fingers, pointing it towards the door. “It’s not raining today,” she says simply. “That may change later today. I don’t know; I can’t control the weather. For the rest of rainy season, if it is raining, we will go out into the yard and do various exercises and spar, and if it is not, we will stay inside and—” she flails her arms around aimlessly, hoping to convey something. Her students seem to get it. “The point of sparring is to gain experience, and I want all of you be experienced with all kinds of weather conditions, so that if and when you enter a real battle you aren’t blindsided by the elements.”

From the bottom of her stack of papers, she lifts a chart not unlike her attendance list. “Here’s your chance to gain free performance points,” she says, and everyone instantly snaps to attention.  _ Free marks, hooray! _ “I will leave this chart on my desk every day. On your way into or out of the room, find your name and write whether you think it will rain or not the following day—check for rain, cross for no rain. Every time you get it right I will award you with one performance point.” 

She sets the sheet on the edge of her desk. “Any questions?”

Nearly every hand in the room goes up. She sighs. “If you do not write anything, you do not receive any performance points for that day.” Most of the hands go down. “Let me be clear: this is just a fun little activity to bring some variety into a learning environment. I don’t care if you summon a rainstorm to get free performance points. That just means we spar the next day. Don’t take it too seriously.

“Class is dismissed. Wear something you don’t mind getting dirty tomorrow. The courtyard’s going to be a mess.” She glances around the room. “Miss von Hresvelg, Mr. Blaiddyd, Mr. von Riegan, a word before you leave.”

There’s a mad scramble for the sheet, but after the initial shock, things quiet down again: Byleth slips off her desk, yanks her ponytail a bit tighter and kicks the feeling back into her legs. Students stream out, and granulating in their wake is her three house leaders, ever vigilant despite the circumstances. Dimitri looks like he hasn’t slept since they got back from Zanado. Byleth wouldn’t put it past him.

“You three,” she says as the door closes behind a fleeting Petra, “I must thank you all for remaining professional and mature throughout the mission. It was not an easy one, and I am very grateful that you three were there to help me bring down the bandit leader.”

“We did what we could,” Claude says. “You really had it in the bag, Teach.”

“I am only human.”  _ No, not really, _ Sothis whispers cruelly. Byleth ignores her. “Furthermore, that’s not the only reason I want to thank you. The battle has obviously taken its toll on your peers, and you three have done an excellent job diffusing the tension. That doesn’t mean you should be doing it.” She stares them each in the eyes, unrelenting. “It’s not right of me to put my responsibilities as a teacher on you, my students.”

“No, no, it’s nothing,” Edelgard says hurriedly. “Professor, what kind of leaders would we be if we didn’t have the heart to help our peers?”

Byleth presses her lips together. “Fairly said,” she concedes, “but remember that you are still students, and you do have schoolwork to attend to. I know I assign relatively few assignments, but the same cannot be said for your other teachers.” She exhales, and the tension seems to fade from her temples as her eyes soften. “If you ever feel overwhelmed by anything—anything at all!—please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I’m still your teacher, and you can come to me with these concerns.”

To her surprise, the three of them look at each other and laugh. “Professor, I assure you that just speaking to you is an excellent source of relaxation,” Edelgard says, lips hidden behind a gloved hand. “I think I speak for all three of us, and perhaps even the rest of our peers, that attending your class is oftentimes the highlight of our day.”

“Really.”

Dimitri nods. “I… was an only child,” he says (and  _ oh _ does Byleth hear the  _ was _ in that phrase), “so there were very few mentor figures in my life who were close to my own age. Your guidance is… really something, Professor. We value it a lot.”

Presently, Byleth realizes that the three of them are waiting for a response, and moreover that her next class is waiting at the door. “Well,” she says, letting go of a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, “I’m not planning to skip town anytime soon, so rest assured I will be here whenever you need me.” She throws a deliberate glance at the door. “Although, now is really not the time.”

“Right, sorry Teach!”

They scamper out, laughing as they go, and Byleth has to turn to the blackboard to hide the beginnings of a fond, wistful smile.

* * *

Mercedes opens her eyes.

The world floods back in at her, all at once.

She blinks, and evening candlelight awakens with her. The infirmary ceiling stares back at her with eyes heavily lidded in wooden beams and graffiti.  _ G and W were here, _ says a scrawl,  _ and they hated every moment of it, class of 1175. _ A few crude marks seem to suggest that some pair of students in 926 had a clandestine tryst in this very infirmary after class, hearts forever carved into the ancient wood.

She exhales softly, and someone at her side startles. “Mercie,” says Annette, sweet Annette who drops her hands from Lysithea’s in an instant and turns to grasp desperately at Mercedes’s arm. “Oh, thank the Goddess, you’re awake! Are you feeling okay? Do you want food or water? More pillows?”

Then Professor Casagranda is there, cradling a mug of steaming tisane and carrying a warm smile. “Let her rest, Miss Dominic,” she says gently, handing the mug to a waiting Lysithea. A little belatedly, Mercedes realizes her arms are pinned under the blankets, and more importantly that she doesn’t really have the will to move them at the moment. The haze of sleep, compounded with the constant low burn of magic trickling back into her body, make the cot that much more welcoming, that much softer.

It takes her a few seconds to work up the willpower to unstick her lips, only to croak “Annie” in half a voice. Annette looks fit to burst; she tries again. “Annie. Are you alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Mercedes finally lifts a hand out to pat Annette’s side. It’s padded with bandages under the uniform. “It was a pretty bad blow. I’m sorry I didn’t get to heal it in time.”

“Aw, it’s alright.” Annette grabs her hand and holds on firmly, never pinching but just enough to stay as warm as the blankets. “Linhardt patched me up, and I didn’t even need stitches. Are  _ you _ alright is the better question, Mercie.”

She scrounges up a smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

And indeed, it’s just like any other post-battle recovery period. Being a healer is difficult like that: giving life to save lives, who would have thought? She sends all the magic in her body into that of her friends with a desperate prayer that it’ll mend their broken bones and stitch their organs back together.  _ Life is a fragile thing, my dear, _ Madame Lisbet echoes in her mind, like they’re back in the grand auditorium of the School of Sorcery.  _ That includes yours. Take care of yourself. _

“It’s just magic exhaustion,” she says, forcing herself to sit up. “I’ll be right as rain in the morning.”

Annette smiles. Her grip does not loosen. “Take it easy for a bit,” she insists, echoing Professor Casagranda’s earlier sentiment. “Professor Eisner said she’d accommodate.”

Right, assignments are still a thing. Annette must see the worry in her face, because she immediately reaches over to squeeze Mercedes’s cheeks between her palms. “Stop thinking about school,” she says sternly, or as stern as she can get. “I’ll fistfight Professor von Essar if he tries to make you hand anything or docks you marks.”

“Don’t,” Mercedes and Lysithea tell her in unison. Annette looks unconvinced, and Mercedes can’t help but laugh at her pout. The sunset descends upon the infirmary, and in the golden hour she thinks all is alright with the world. Here, surrounded by friends and pillows, taking a sip of the tisane that Lysithea passes her, she thinks that maybe passing out for several hours, maybe even days, wasn’t so bad after all.

She looks around the infirmary, now that she’s sat up. Annette is perched on the edge of the cot, still holding Mercedes’s hand like she’s afraid Mercedes will disappear if she doesn’t. Lysithea has commandeered a chair, and is currently chattering to Hilda, who sits crosslegged on a sleeping Marianne’s cot. Over on the gentlemen’s side, Caspar sits next to Linhardt, voice brought uncharacteristically quiet as he recounts the day’s events to his friend. A flash of orange hair in the next cot over suggests that Ferdinand’s still sleeping off his wounds.

Dorothea approaches with a teapot, wordlessly gesturing to the mug. Mercedes downs the last of her tisane and allows the other girl to refill her mug. “I have to apologize, Mercedes,” Dorothea says abashedly, “I may have used up your staff after you passed out on us. I’ll get you a new one as soon as I can, I promise.”

“No need to apologize, Dorothea.” Mercedes offers up a soft smile, the kind she usually has when treating the injured herself. “I should be thanking you for taking up my post after I fell. Don’t worry about the staff, I’d much rather everyone else be in one piece than a silly piece of equipment.”

It doesn’t seem to reassure Dorothea much, so Mercedes reaches out to grasp her hand, squeezing lightly the way she used to when Emile woke up from nightmares. Despite the fact that Dorothea’s the eldest of the girls in the Black Eagles, she’s still so much younger than Mercedes, and looks so scared of the future ahead and the past she’s left behind.

“Don’t worry about it,” she echoes. “It was running out of uses, anyhow.” She draws her legs in and nestles the mug into the crease of her lap. “Once I recover, we can visit the armory and pick out a new one. I’m of the belief that one should never be without a good staff.”

“She’s right,” Annette chirps. “Our instructors at the School of Sorcery always said to be armed to the teeth with spells, even ones you don’t think you’ll ever use. You never know!”

“I knew a man who took that saying too seriously,” Lysithea mutters. “Carved sigils into his teeth. He doesn’t have them anymore.”

“The spells or the teeth?”

“Both, really.”

That gets them all laughing, and Mercedes sinks back into her pillows with a content sigh. “See?” she tells Dorothea, who finally looks a little less tormented, a little more at terms with her existence. “I’ll help you pick out a new staff, too.”

“I think I’d like that.”

Mercedes beams at her with the smile of a thousand suns.

* * *

“Hubert, I assure you that I do  _ not _ need to be accompanied.”

“Lady Edelgard, I assure you that you  _ do.” _

It’s nearly seven, which means it’s nearly time for Edelgard to head off for her “make-up tea party” with Professor Eisner, since their weekend venture had to take a raincheck. “She’s our professor, for Seiros’s sake,” she insists. “I’ve had tea with her a few times already, those were fine.”

“Those were in a public place,” Hubert reminds her, “since you took tea in the courtyard, where I could keep an eye on her. Furthermore, those were  _ before _ she killed a man with one of the most toxic plants in Fódlan!”

Edelgard straightens her homework papers on her desk and sets them aside (she’s not upset, Hubert evaluates, just frustrated). “And what do you make of those meetings? Does she seem like the type to poison royalty, much less a student?”

Hubert doesn’t move. Edelgard groans. “You intend on bringing the handkerchief, do you not.”

“On the contrary, Lady Edelgard, it’s already in my pocket.”

Edelgard puts her face in her hands, gracelessly slumping over her desk, and then picks herself up all strung tight in the shoulders like she’s about to make a beeline for their professor’s room. He wouldn’t put it past her. “You can walk me to her door,” she finally says, voice flat—an ultimatum. She won’t budge past this; he knows from experience.

She makes Hubert carry some of her tea things, though. Edelgard may be nearing her age of majority, but she is still human, and as her oldest friend Hubert receives the entirety of her petty revenge. Their footsteps echo down the stairwell as they descend, hers uncharacteristically fleeting, and his rhythmic and solid.

There was a stairwell in the palace in Enbarr that went up and down multiple storeys. Hubert remembers running through them as a child, chasing after a much younger imperial princess. She’d been like a bird then, and she’s only grown into her feathers since.

But years of hardship have sharpened her talons and left her distant, and some days Hubert wonders if there’s anything left in her of that girl in red, who flew from open windows and grew plumage to guard herself from the cold.

Professor Eisner’s door creaks open the moment Edelgard raps her knuckles against it, and a muffled  _ “come in” _ echoes from inside. Without even a moment’s hesitation, Edelgard pushes her way in, looking fit to burst at the seams. Hubert slides into the doorframe after her, curious if not concerned.

The desk is not up against the wall. The bulletin board is raining papers on the floor below. Upon further inspection, the desk has been pulled away to rest in front of the bed, serving as a makeshift table. Several plates (presumably pilfered from the mess hall) carrying foodstuffs line its surface, casting delicate shadows on the checkered tablecloth.

“Miss von Hresvelg, Mr. von Vestra,” Professor Eisner says, popping up from behind the desk. Hubert doesn’t flinch visibly, but his hand sweeps back at his side, within reach of his knife. “Are you both staying for dinner? I might have to cook another fish if that’s the case…”

“Dinner,” Hubert says, as Edelgard says  _ “cook?” _ with wide, wide eyes.

“Of course, I didn’t spend the weekend fishing in the rain for nothing.” She sweeps her hands out across the desk, and it’s only then that Hubert realizes that the majority of the dishes are varying degrees of charred fish, roasted and poached and broiled. A small basket of dinner rolls from the mess hall sits on the edge. “I thought we’d have an informal dinner to make up for the lack of informal tea.”

“We’d be honoured, Professor,” says Edelgard, who gives Hubert a  _ look _ that tells him that he set himself up for this, and that he’s made his bed and he  _ will _ sleep in it, if she has anything to say about it. “Thank you for having us.”

Professor Eisner hums and gestures. Hubert takes his seat on the bed.

The food is simple, but looks appetizing enough. A small pot holds grilled herring with carrots and turnips; a twist of an early-season Noa fruit garnishes a plate of two-fish saute. All of it smells rich with herbs and spices that wouldn’t be out of place in the imperial kitchens, and Hubert has to wonder where their professor is acquiring these from.

He coughs unconvincingly into his elbow and pulls the handkerchief from his pocket. He’d picked it from his grandmother’s effects after her passing; Salome von Vestra served an Adrestian emperor as well, and knew the tools of her trade. The intricate flowers embroidered into the muslin are more feminine than he cares to admit, but it’s a fair tradeoff in the event that toxins from those plants are spilled. It’ll take a minute for the spells to finish scrying for poison; he’ll keep it wedged in his sleeve until then.

Professor Eisner does not say grace before breaking the bread. It’s fairly well-known among the student populace that she isn’t particularly religious, but it’s jarring all the same. “Help yourselves,” she says, sticking a spoon in each of the dishes. She then proceeds to spoon a healthy serving of stew (is that Airmid pike?) from one of the pots, and unceremoniously dips her bread in and starts to eat. Even her chewing is practically silent; she is built for stealth in all the ways that Hubert is, and it irks him greatly.

He throws a desperate glance at Edelgard. She’s helping herself to some of the vegetable pasta salad—one of the few things on the table not made from fish—and he has to try very hard not to exhale audibly. He carries a few drops of a potent antidote on him at all times, but this honestly seems like a setup.

There’s no way Professor Eisner doesn’t know that Edelgard was there when she interrogated Kostas. Young women with silver-white hair are hard to come by, after all. He liked her teaching but didn’t trust her before she killed Kostas in silence, and now that he knows he understands that maybe the teacherly front is just that: a front, for the mercenary and cold-blooded killer hidden underneath.

She’s dangerous, more so than any other playing piece on the field right now.

But Edelgard trusts her, and Hubert trusts Edelgard, and that’s where the moral dilemma sets in. Does he investigate further and possibly evoke his liege’s ire, or bide his time as he’s been ordered until it’s too late? 

He takes a spoonful of the grilled herring. The meat flakes off the bone, still steaming under the charred skin. It’s been expertly descaled and cleaned, seemingly disassembled with a few quick slashes of a knife. Unlike most Adrestian fish dishes, it doesn’t  _ smell _ fishy—rather, under the spices (that  _ must _ be covering up the scent of poison) there’s actually a kind of cozy smell, like wholesome campfire stew served up by mercenaries on the go.

“A bit of garlic,” Professor Eisner says, as if reading his mind. “Does wonders for the taste, too.” She mops up some of the stew with her bread, pushing around the fish chunks on her plate. It’s simple food for the road, Hubert realizes, probably the only thing she can cook seeing as they’re all resorting to eating with their hands.

Edelgard has polished off her plate, and is happily helping herself to some of the sauteed fish, and not-so-subtly elbows him in the side. “Professor, your cooking is phenomenal! Did you make these recipes on your own? Is there a cookbook I may learn from?”

“It’s mostly just comfort food, Miss von Hresvelg.” Professor Eisner scoops up a chunk of carrot from the pot and dumps it onto her bread roll. “I learned most of it from my father, and most nights I try to share a meal with him if I can. Food brings people together.”

The handkerchief in Hubert’s sleeve does not react. Accepting his fate, he breaks a bread roll and uses it to scoop up some of the herring on his plate.  _ Bitter poison, _ he tells himself,  _ bitter poison that will bring about my downfall, that of Lady Edelgard’s, and the entire Adrestian Empire. _

And loath that he is to admit it, the food tastes just as good as it smells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> isn't rain cathartic? i think rain is lovely except when it makes my knee hurt. it's been raining a lot lately and the weather's finally cooled down enough that i can actually sleep at night lmao. i wish y'all kind weather wherever you are  
> Vega the border collie was inspired by the IRL Vega the border collie, who lived in a yard that bordered the soccer field at my elementary school! it's been literally Years since i left that school so i have no idea how Vega's doing but she was the sweetest dog when i met her  
> i feel like re: Byleth's cats there is now sufficient information to accurately guess what they're going to be named. place your bets now
> 
> * * *
> 
> and as an aside, thank you for 500 kudos! my kokoro truly goes dokoro with all of your support


	18. staff meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much to do, much to do.

“You’re late.”

Byleth throws a glance at the clock on the wall; it doesn’t offer much help, but she’s fairly certain that she’s within the minute of the appointed meeting time. “Not by enough to matter,” she tells Seteth with a shrug. “I’m not the last one here.”

Seteth scowls as she takes her seat at the mock roundtable in the staff room. “That isn’t something to be proud of.” He crosses his arms over his chest because it squares his shoulders and makes him seem more intimidating, but Byleth remains unfazed. It’s hard to  _ be fazed _ when she’s seen him crouched talking to small children.

Thankfully, Rhea manifests in the doorway in all her white-clad glory, trailed by an aide carrying her notebooks. “Peace, Seteth, we all have our off days,” she says serenely, flashing a warm smile at Byleth. It seems too real, the dimples and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, like she’s been cast in wax and poured out again. “Is everyone assembled already? We have quite a bit to discuss in regards to the curriculum, and I would hate for anyone to be missing.”

Byleth looks across the table. It’s just like any other staff meeting, except she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to seeing Jeritza taking her spot with the house professors. Instead, she’s seated between Catherine and Gilbert, whose respective note-taking habits can be described as “nothing” and “everything” respectively. “I think we’re all here.”

“Excellent.” Rhea opens a planner, accepts a pen from her aide, and starts to read. “Some housekeeping items first, in regards to occurrences of last month. No casualties, though I have been informed that some students were injured during their end-of-month assignments. I presume that those students have been given temporary medical leave from their coursework until they have recovered?”

A wave of assent. Rhea hums. “Good. We only had three detentions throughout the entire month, which is an improvement. I would note that two of those three were due to students skipping mass service repeatedly—Hanneman, my friend, I believe those two were your Lions?”

“They were.” Hanneman sighs; his eyes, however tired, are stormy. “The detention wasn’t necessarily for skipping mass service, but rather what they were, ahem, doing with the time.”

“I see.” Rhea jots it down in her planner and sets her pen aside. “Well, in that case, I think we can move onto class progress. Hanneman, would you be so kind as to start us off?”

Hanneman beams, pushes his spectacles higher up on his nose, and lifts his papers. “The Lions are on schedule as per the curriculum’s guidelines,” he says. If Flayn were here, no doubt she’d be pulling faces behind his back, but she’s taken the afternoon to go fishing. There goes the life of the staff meeting. “Yesterday the students handed in their assignment on  _ The Edge of Time, _ which I am in the process of marking and should return by the end of the week. In the meantime, I had them begin on the  _ Codex Bellum _ for their next history assignment.”

“Excellent,” Rhea hums. “And in maths?”

“We’re proceeding through limits.” Hanneman winces. “Not the most intuitive subject, unfortunately.”

“That is why we have more time set aside for the subject, my dear professor. Thank you for your report. Manuela, Jeritza, would either of you like to report next?”

The resulting silent standoff is almost electric; Jeritza may be far more intimidating to the students, but Manuela knows  _ exactly _ which buttons to push, and she gets up. “Of course, Archbishop Rhea. The Black Eagles are in a transitionary period between texts—I’m in the process of marking their papers on  _ The Goddess and the Fell Star. _ I assigned both the  _ Codex Bellum _ and  _ On the Philosophy of Arms _ for reading, but we aren’t discussing either in class just yet.” She shares a commiserating look with Hanneman. “And of course limits.”

“Thank you, dearest Manuela. Jeritza, if you would?”

“Just about the same.” He drops his papers against the table a few times to straighten them out, ignoring the stare of everyone else in the room. “The Deer handed in their papers on  _ Descendant of Sirius, _ which I am now marking. They are reading  _ On the Philosophy of Arms _ now.” He pauses. “... And limits is giving all of us grief.”

This gets a round of light laughter out of everyone present. “Suffice to say, it is a difficult subject for both teacher and student,” Rhea muses. “Thank you, my house professors. We are on track for the curriculum, and it is all thanks to your diligence to your classes.”

She turns to Byleth, and it’s as though she’s become a different person in the way she smiles, as though she can only be this happy when looking at Byleth. “And what of our resident combat professor? One of the few who have escaped the pain of limits?”

Byleth looks down at her open notebook; her own scrawl seems almost unintelligible. “Throughout the last month, I covered, uh…” The notebook offers her no help. She closes it. “Verbal tactics, first, followed by basic recovery techniques. We also took a day to explore the Noa theorem and magic absorption theory.” Manuela throws her a grateful smile, which she returns with a subtle lift of her lips. “With regards to tactics, we explored situational awareness, and I had them look into the evolution of Valentian tactics as a small written assignment.”

Rhea looks pleased with this. “Fascinating,” she says. “In my years directing the academy, I have rarely seen a combat professor look into the tactics of other nations, let alone those so far away. How did your students respond to this?”

“They seemed to enjoy it, and it was pleasant to mark. For this month, I intend to have them strategize through the battles of the Valla Cycle to supplement the other tactical studies we’ll be doing.”

_ “Other combat things,” _ Sothis offers helpfully in her mindscape.  _ “You should be talking to them about mounts and armor by now.” _

“And starting next week, weather permitting, I’ll be introducing them to mounts, going over basic animal husbandry,” she continues. “Otherwise, I’ll continue to have the students work on fighting in suboptimal weather conditions.”

Rhea nods. “Thank you, dear heart. I’ll have Seteth get you a key to the stables for those lessons. My dear Seteth, would you also share the protocol for booking out the stables with our combat professor?”

“Certainly,” says Seteth with only half a glower.

The rest of the staff meeting proceeds as normal: Gilbert makes his report on his firearms class, making it sound about as exciting as Edelgard and Ingrid make it out to be; Shamir gives her report on the outcomes of last month’s mission; Catherine updates them on the happenings within the Knights of Seiros. Byleth tries not to doze off, but ends up staring into the middle distance all the same, a million thoughts running through her mind all at once.

There are two end-of-month missions that have always weighed on her heart badly for all that she handles them so gracelessly. As the combat professor, she can easily offer an out—she’d just take a different class, take a few more hits for them—but she has a sinking feeling that she already knows how Ashe and Sylvain will respond. She remembers the fake smiles and the sleepless nights; Ashe alone in the dark cathedral praying for solace; Sylvain losing himself behind a mask.

And it’s not just them. She sees the way Jeritza studies the building, as though looking for possible escape routes; she catches herself staring as Edelgard pulls her gloves on tighter, unwilling to show the scars tinged blue underneath. Annette’s wistful glances at the closed door during Gilbert’s elective classes, Lysithea studying the split ends of her snowy hair, Leonie clinging to every word Jeralt says as though it’ll be the last she hears. Byleth knows  _ too much, _ and it’s slowly drowning her.

She tells herself she’s going to fix things this time, and she’s making good progress all the same! The three lordlings have become somewhat friends under her tutelage! She’s guiding them and their peers away from a world of danger! And yet some days, that voice in her heart that even Sothis doesn’t dare echo reminds her that she’s failed so many times already, that you can’t change history. She returns, time and time again, to a yesterday that’s already slipped her by, and fails to see it blossom into a tomorrow.

Instead, she grounds herself in today. Today, she’s got papers to mark, and she promised to drop by Hanneman’s crest analysis lab after the meeting, and oh, didn’t she promise a spar to Jeritza earlier in the week? That’s something to live for: the people around her, her students, her colleagues. Seteth, Flayn and Rhea—not quite strangers, not quite family. Her father, lost to her so many times already.

_ That’s _ something to believe in.

* * *

Someone knocks three times on the door, but Hanneman can’t be arsed to lift his eyes from his page. “Come in,” he says, dipping his quill and tapping it against the edge of his inkwell before putting pen to paper once more. “What can I help you with?”

A shuffle; no response. “Please don’t waste my time,” he adds, brow furrowed.  _ Therefore, under the current theory, it is impossible for two individuals with different minor crests to produce any children with either crest at all. This would be in contrast to recorded history, as Emperor Theophania von Hresvelg, who bore a minor crest of Seiros, had three children each carrying crests by her consort Estienne von Varley, carrying a minor crest of Indech. _

Presently, there is a shadow over his shoulder. He glances up to find Byleth Eisner staring down, reading his page with wide eyes. “Goodness, Professor Eisner,” he gasps, “I must implore you  _ not _ to alarm me so.”

“Ah. My apologies, Professor von Essar.” She takes a step away from his desk, bowing her head curtly. “You mentioned you wanted to talk after the staff meeting?”

That’s right, he caught up with her this morning in the staff room. She had to run to class (Goddess knows how she manages to stay on time) but they’d arranged this time. “Yes, of course,” he says, setting his quill aside and rising from his seat. “You recall that I analyzed some of your blood and your hair for a crest, a while back.”

“Yes.” Even though her expression doesn’t change, she suddenly looks deeply uncomfortable, shifting her weight onto one leg and fidgeting the other at the knee-joint. “You mentioned that I bear a previously unknown crest.”

“Ah, so you remembered!” He searches the shelves and pulls down a notebook flagged with a teal ribbon, shows her the wobbly sketch of the crest he saw in the analyzer. Sure, it’s just a fragment, but it’s just as disheartening when she shows no response whatsoever, no form of recognition. “Yes, it’s incredible indeed. And you say you hadn’t known previously about your crest?”

“No.” If possible, she looks even more uncomfortable, and even nervous. “It doesn’t really… manifest, not as often as it does for some of the students.”

Hanneman stares at her. She stares back. “But how fascinating that is, my friend! Why, it should be activating  _ more _ often than not—for you bear a  _ major _ crest. I’ve hardly seen anyone with a crest that glows so brightly. Yours could easily upset crest theory as we know it, and start an intellectual revolution of the way we understand crests and their inheritance.”

She seems amused at the last statement, as though she could ever cause a revolution among intellectuals. Surely the mages up in Fhirdiad would be scandalized by her presence, let alone her miracle crest. "It'd be an honour to have such an impact on your studies."

"Truly, such a study would change crestology forever!” He pauses, slowly lowering his gesturing hands. “With your consent, of course. It would be unethical of me to pursue a study without permission from the subject!”

To his surprise, Byleth nods. “As long as it’s not anything more invasive than a few drops of blood or a few strands of hair,” she asserts, “I can provide samples, and information if you need it.”

“Yes, tracing your lineage could prove an issue… or not.” Hanneman snaps his fingers, as if the knowledge will return to him any faster that way. “Your last name is Eisner, no? How fascinating, House Eisner was thought to have died out during the Plague of Fhirdiad! Yours must be an estranged branch of the family that survived.”

Something of a smile crosses her face, though it’s not anywhere close to the way she smiles at her students. “My father and I travelled often when I was young. It’s unlikely we were during the Kingdom at all during the Plague. Professor von Essar, are you suggesting that I have noble heritage?”

“Possibly a few times removed, but yes. House Eisner was never particularly powerful in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus—most of their members supported House Blaiddyd directly, much like how House Vestra serves the Adrestian throne, but as tactical advisors rather than as, say, comptrollers of the household.” He purses his lips. “And yet, most notably, House Eisner was never known to carry a crest through their bloodline. Which of your parents did your crest come from?”

And just like that, anything even remotely resembling joy drops from her expression, and Hanneman has to wonder which line he crossed. “I never knew my mother,” she says quietly. “My father… he’s due to return to the monastery in three days’ time. Perhaps you can ask him then.”

He half expects her to just walk out then and there without another word, but she bounces back, if only briefly, to nod politely and square her stance. “I apologize, Professor von Essar, it’s occurred to me that I promised a spar to Professor von Hrym.” Hands at her sides, not clenched into fists but flat like blades, swaying close to that knife on her hip. “But I would be open for further conversation afterwards.”

When she walks out, she brings the door behind her; it doesn’t close fully, creaks ever so slightly open. Youthful laughter streams in from outside as Hanneman gets up to close it, sighing as his joints creak in protest. Out of sheer curiosity, he pokes his head out the door, peering down the hallway ahead and both ways.

There’s no one left but the now-silent students, and for what it’s worth, they look just as confused as he feels.

* * *

_ Follow the trail of broken practice dummy bits, _ the students joke,  _ and you’ll find Professor von Hrym at the end. _ Jeritza’s inclined to disagree; he doesn’t dismember  _ that _ many training dummies, and there are plenty of students who peruse the training grounds just as regularly, if not more. He often spars with the Fraldarius boy, and on occasion Raphael and the younger Bergliez, and supervises all those who sign out the grounds for their own time.

It’s really Byleth who leaves a trail of broken dolls behind, Byleth Eisner who has flame in her limbs and ice in her eyes and steel on her tongue. She leaves a scrap of roughed-up canvas at his door as her means of letting him know she’s got time to spar, and so he ends office hours (a little too quickly) and prepares to follow her trail: ties his hair back firmly in the silence of his room, adjusts his mask, plucks his favourite lance from its place in the corner.

There’s no shame in losing a spar, but to coordinate an attack with Catherine and  _ still _ have his ass handed to him was less than dignified. Byleth Eisner is a whirlwind with a sword and just as deadly with any other weapon. Hell, he’s willing to bet that she could knock the lance from his hands with just the little knife she always wears. He’s seen her gut fish with it on the docks, feeding the viscera to the monastery strays that wander her way.

_ (Wouldn’t you like to meet your end like that? Torn to pieces at the hands of a dainty blade and its daintier owner, organs swimming in blood turned to stew for ravenous hellhounds? A battle worthy to be called an “end”, for all that it is a new beginning?) _

The monastery staff have recently brought in fresh sand for the training grounds, and it crunches with each step as Byleth practices moulinets around a tattered but still standing dummy. Each move she makes is precise, a steady pattern of circular slashes around the dummy and calculated steps in and out of the fray. She’s mesmerizing to watch—the very epitome of swordsmanship—and Jeritza finds himself frozen in the shadow of a column, watching and watching and watching. Every part of her is constantly in motion, from the bob of her ponytail to the strength of her grip.

She finishes her set and stops to take a breather, and it’s as though air floods back into his lungs too, drowning the adrenaline. A shiver goes down his spine unbidden, be it from anticipation or  _ fear. _

“You can come out now,” she says suddenly, not turning away from the beaten dummy. “The students are going to start wondering why you’re just standing in the doorway.”

_ Well played, Byleth Eisner. _ “Then let them wonder,” he grumbles, finally emerging with a swing of his lance. “You’re every bit the same enigma.”

She doesn’t refute the claim. Briefly, Jeritza wonders if the Archbishop has a particular penchant for hiring young, desperately underqualified, mysteriously-silent professors. He’d thought himself an odd choice, and then he’d laid eyes on Byleth Eisner, standing ramrod-straight next to her legend of a father, and suddenly he found himself questioning the Archbishop’s eye.

(The Death Knight growls at the mere mention of the Archbishop.  _ Let me indulge in a spar, and then we can indulge your violent whimsies later, _ Jeritza tells him. This does not make the other any more quiet.)

“Would you prefer to take a break first?” he asks, shucking off his jacket. It lands in a clump on a nearby bench. “I can fetch some water if you need.”

She shakes her head. “It was just reps.” It’s comical, really, how short she is in comparison to him; her elbows barely pass his shoulders as she reaches up and tugs her ponytail tighter. In all black, she seems like a blur of movement, like the monastery strays that slink through the shadows. “Shall we?”

This is what Jeritza likes best about Byleth Eisner: she is beyond strong, yes, but she is also a fair sport and an incredible spar partner. She asked him beforehand whether he was comfortable with using sharpened arms instead of training ones (why wouldn’t he, but it’s the thought that counts), and even now she still gestures vaguely with her sword handle, as though asking if he’s alright with getting roughed up by the blade. He dips his head in acknowledgement _ —my life is in your hands now— _ and then—

She lunges in perfect form, leading with her blade, and he swipes down to meet her. Despite the obvious advantage of height and reach, Jeritza really doesn't have many cards to play. Byleth, he's discovered, assesses her fights at lightning speed, analyzing for weaknesses ruthlessly as she seamlessly transitions between defensive and offensive styles. He only has about a thirty-second window to whale on her mercilessly before she's done profiling and switches to her own merciless assault.

It's  _ exhilarating. _ Every move she takes is so calculated, so stylized, that it more than makes up for what little advantage Jeritza has. For the first time since he took on his teaching position at Garreg Mach, and maybe even before, he feels like he's found a battlefield equal.

They circle each other like wolves, each unyielding. Compared to him, she's so small that he could easily sweep her with a single blow—if she were ever still enough for him to catch her like that. A jab to her side might take her out, but he's seen her sidestep most of those. Seizing the moment, he fakes a swing to her left, lifts the lance over his head and swings down with wild abandon.

She just barely catches it against her blade, staggering back from the force of the hit with grit teeth. Jeritza presses closer and closer, till he feels her exhale across the bridge of his nose, and briefly considers asking her if he’s going too far before she grips her forearm tightly with her free hand and  _ pushes _ him off. He regains poise in a second, steadying his stance, and the cycle continues: rounding on each other in slow circles, darting out here and there to throw the other off their rhythm, playing the game for what it could be and not what it is.

And while Jeritza knows he’s not quite as perfect with a weapon as Byleth, he’s not bad himself—he gives Catherine a hard enough time when they spar, and so far none of the students have managed to best him. He knows where to look during a spar and how to look. Through the mask, he sees the way Byleth favours her right side when she walks, the split-second lag when she regrips her sword, the tilt of her head and the widening of her eyes when he lunges again.

This time, she pivots hard, and the head of his lance clashes against her sword before beginning to slide. He’s seen her use this trick before; she steps in closer and closer until he can feel the hilt of her sword dig into his abdomen. At this range, Byleth’s eyes are almost kaleidoscopic, flecks of green dancing between the teal and changing with the afternoon light. Jeritza presses against her harder, receiving the same blank face for his grin. He’s seen this trick before. He won’t lose to her here.

Just as he expects, she twists the blade down, in time for him to push the opposite way to counteract it. Her eyes widen for just a fraction of a second, and in the time it takes for her to react Jeritza has already swung his lance the full way around, bringing her sword with it as both weapons skid off the sand. She dives before he can get his lance around, and when he does it’s a wide sweep, hoping to catch her off guard.

Of course, she’s far too fast for that. She’s already on her feet and back in a fighting stance, and this time when they clash she’s more than prepared to counter his next trick. In close quarters a lance little more than a staff; Jeritza shifts his grip up and focuses on the spearhead. He’s tall and wields a proportionately long weapon; Byleth likes to take advantage of this to step in close where he can’t get her, and unravel him like that. This time, he takes the lead and jabs in closely, not bothering to dart in and out like he’s been taught, like he teaches.

He pays dearly for it. Byleth switches gears in a seemingly split-second decision, sidestepping him and switching her sword to her other hand as she rams her elbow into his sternum. Jeritza chokes on nothing as his feet betray him, stumbling across sand and her well-placed boot, and when all is said and done he’s flat on the sand, and she has a knee on his stomach, an elbow to his chest and a sword to his throat.

For a heartbeat, as the pain in his back ebbs and recedes, neither of them breathe. Byleth’s hand trembles, and Jeritza feels the blade tilt ever so slightly higher, levelling their gazes and forcing him to look at her: she is beautiful in the way only monsters are. Every muscle in his body burns.

Then Byleth blinks, and her grip steadies as she tosses the sword aside; it clatters against his lance, and she clambers off him. “Goddess, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to actually cut you,” she says, helping him into a seated position. “Fuck, you’re bleeding.”

Jeritza stares. Swearing is generally frowned upon on school grounds, but then again, wasn’t she raised by a mercenary group…? She steadies him by the shoulders, and he goes boneless all over as she dusts off her hands and tips his chin up again with lithe fingers. When she draws away, her fingertips are stained red. “I’m sorry. Stay here, I’ll get someone who can patch you up.”

And what can he do but stay, still seated in the sand barely supported by his aching arms? The pleasant thrum of the spar echoes through his bones, as it always does after a good bout. He’s sore, but not exhausted. That’s another thing he likes about sparring with Byleth: she’s not a rough partner, and never leaves a mark despite her predilection for sharp weapons.

Except today, it seems.

Byleth comes running back, and Jeritza’s stare goes from faraway to hyperfocused as Mercedes follows, staff brandished before her. There’s a fire in Mercedes’s eyes as she drops to her knees next to him, glares at what must be the cut across his Adam’s apple, and gets to work.

“Thank you for helping, Miss von Martritz,” Byleth says, sounding a tad more distressed than her usual monotone. “It won’t scar, will it?”

“No, thankfully. With a little extra attention to the spell, most healing spells won’t leave any traces.” The magic washes over him; beyond the usual prickle of the skin healing, there’s something a little more muted, a little softer. It feels like his memories of summers in Enbarr as a child, grasping onto a larger hand, laughing at the colours and the sights—

“All done.” Mercedes pats his shoulder twice, and Jeritza can only thank his mask for hiding the way his expression contorts beyond his control. “Take care now, Professors.”

“Of course. Thank you so much, Miss von Martritz.” Byleth dips her head as one might in formal greeting. “Had you not been there at that time, I don’t know what I would have done.”

Mercedes blushes and ushers herself out, but Jeritza is hit with the inexplicable feeling that Byleth Eisner somehow  _ knew _ she was going to be there, that she was the right person to bring in.

(And if that’s true, then, simply put, she knows  _ too much.) _

* * *

“Cyril’s wandered off,” is all Shamir says when she unceremoniously kicks down Catherine’s door an hour after the staff meeting. This statement does not concern Catherine in the slightest, seeing as Cyril is a whole fourteen years old, and she was out on the town getting in fights with the local boys at that age. Besides, it’s not like he could have wandered far—monastery policy ensures that no one enters or leaves the monastery grounds without permission, and the guards are all familiar with Cyril, anyways.

“He’s probably tailing Lady Rhea around the cathedral,” Catherine snorts. “Let the kid be.”

“You misunderstand.” It’s only now that Catherine recognizes Shamir’s expression as amusement. “He’s wandered off into Byleth’s little training session.”

“I thought she was done classes for the day.”

“She does playfighting with the kids and the prince on Wednesday afternoons,” says Shamir, as though this is obvious. “She obviously had to move it because of the staff meeting, but they’re in the courtyard.”

Briefly, Catherine takes into account the monastery orphans: the youngest ones are barely five, and the eldest are around Cyril’s age, forever caught in childhood. Teaching them to fight through play might not be that bad of an idea.

If it were anyone else, that is. Catherine has experienced Byleth’s stony expression and relentless hand for herself, and if she were under ten years of age and could barely hold a sword up she’d probably burst into tears at the first sight of Byleth. Whatever possessed Cyril to leave Lady Rhea’s side to seek out the tutelage of the Ashen Demon?

Shamir must see all of this in her expression, because she cracks out a three-second laugh into her gloved hand. “I’ll take you to see for yourself,” she offers, as if she doesn’t know how much paperwork Catherine has to finish. And then, because she knows Catherine too well: “we can stop by the mess hall on our way there.”

Catherine caps her inkwell and throws her hands in the air. “I’m sold.”

She caves too easily, and they both know it. That’s just the easy part of their friendship: being able to let down the front of knighthood in front of each other, a sanctuary from the battles and the bookkeeping. They dress each other’s wounds just as easily as they abscond to Remire for a drink on Friday evenings, just as easily as they trust the other to watch their back in a battle.

Under sunlight, Shamir’s hair looks like hastily-scrawled lines of ink, the glimmer of the final gasp for air before the paper soaks them up. Indoors, it’s more like the worn words in a textbook, like the neat printing in the huge bible in the cathedral. As they dodge running students and descend into the bowels of the monastery, Catherine tells Shamir of her day among the Knights, delighting in every time she draws out a smile.

They picked a crummy time to visit the mess hall, though. The line of students waiting for dinner extends out an eternity, and it’s only by virtue of being monastery staff that the two of them are able to get a bite to eat. Plates held high above their heads, they wade through an ocean of bodies, and Catherine’s almost certain she dropped some flaking pie crust into her hair.

“Yoohoo, Catherine! Shamir!”

Manuela’s waving at them from a table a distance away. She’s accompanied by one of her students—Dorothea Arnault, Catherine recalls—and Flayn, all three squashed into a space clearly meant for two. There aren’t any free seats, but Catherine elbows Shamir until she turns to look, and they wander over.

“Doing anything interesting, girls?” Manuela asks, cheek in hand as she pokes and prods at her pheasant roast. “You did promise to bring me with you the next time you go drinking.”

“Manuela,” Dorothea scolds, though with a smile. Beside her, Flayn giggles into her bite of fish. “It’s only Wednesday.”

“She’s right,” Shamir says with a frown. “Besides, we aren’t going out tonight, or this week either. Don’t  _ pout _ at me, Manuela, you aren’t as subtle as you think you are.”

“We’re going to watch Byleth wrangle children,” Catherine says cheekily. “Er, Professor Eisner to you girls, I suppose.” That’s right, Byleth is still a professor, despite the fact that she’s about the same age as some of the students. Man, when did Catherine turn into an old hag?

Dorothea brightens at the mention of Byleth. “Oh, she tutors the monastery orphans in swordfighting on Wednesdays with His Highness,” she recalls, smiling warmly. “It’s really something, Dame Catherine, I joined them once to teach some of the children spellwork. I think you’d enjoy it.”

That gets them on their merry way, and so they leave Manuela’s table to their dinner. The claustrophobic press of students fades as soon as they abscond into the hallways, into the sunlight, into the outdoors. Catherine’s had enough mess hall disasters for one lifetime.

Back when she was a student, she’d get her food and eat somewhere else, usually her own room or the courtyard if she was with friends. It was just more convenient, even if she lost on opportunities to talk to people, and besides, no one said anything about multitasking your dinner and your homework. The kitchen staff didn’t give a damn back then as long as you brought your plates back, and they sure don’t give a damn now.

“I think we’re getting close,” Shamir says, head tilted in amusement. For a second Catherine’s too focused on the  _ atrocious _ way she’s choosing to eat her pie (in lieu of their lack of forks, Shamir’s just picked the whole slice up and bit into it), but then the sound of little feet pattering and young children laughing catch her attention. “They should be in the courtyard.”

Sure enough, Byleth Eisner is knelt on the ground in the courtyard, demonstrating a proper bow draw to a young girl. “Never empty-fire,” she instructs, voice stern as she slowly releases the tension on the bow. Beside Catherine, Shamir hums in appreciation. “Too much, and it’ll break the bow  _ and _ your shoulder.”

The girl looks terrified. “It’ll break my shoulder?”

“Not if you don’t empty-fire. Promise me you won’t?”

“I won’t!” the girl chirps, and a rallying cry of little voices echo the sentiment. Catherine can’t help but laugh a little at the enthusiasm. Here in the courtyard, it feels like all is right with the world, like the sweet beginning of summer.

Shamir prods her in the side with her elbow. “Over there,” she whispers, gesturing with a crane of her neck. Catherine follows the line to Cyril on the other side of the courtyard, helping a younger boy with a bow nearly the same height as him. “He’s trying so hard.”

“Does everyone have a bow and arrows?” Byleth is saying, looking around. “Alright. Let’s line up, one at a time.” She gestures at a line, where the children promptly assemble single-file. “David, you’re first.”

A young boy with a massive bow steps up to the plate, and with Byleth’s help he’s able to raise the bow. Shamir visibly winces when he releases the bowstring, but for a kid so tiny the arrow goes impressively far, hitting the edge of the target. Prince Dimitri and Cyril both start clapping, and the children all cheer. “Good work,” Byleth pronounces, and David beams at her and bounces off to the end of the line.

“They look like they’re having fun,” Catherine muses, as Shamir wads up the rest of her pie crust and shovels it into her mouth. Another child fires at the target, and another cheer goes up. “Your pipsqueak is, too.” She gets an elbow to the side for that quip. “Oh, c’mon, tell me I’m wrong.”

“He’s too old to be a pipsqueak,” Shamir says. “How about—”

A  _ twang _ cuts through the air as an arrow goes flying, and before Catherine can even  _ think _ about the children in its path Byleth is leaping into its trajectory, drawing her sword in a smooth arc and cutting it down with inhuman speed. By the time she’s collected her muscles and has started running towards the group, Byleth is already hugging a crying child, bow and arrow all but forgotten.

“It was just an accident,” Byleth says over and over, voice brought quiet as Prince Dimitri and Cyril try to entertain the other children. “Claire, you’re not in trouble. It was just an accident. They happen all the time. I’m just glad you’re unhurt.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” A moment’s pause, then Byleth awkwardly reaches up to pat Claire on the head twice. “It was your first time firing an arrow. No one’s hurt. Everything’s going to be alright.”

One of the nuns supervising clears her throat. “Professor Eisner, I believe it’s time for the children to have dinner. Would you mind terribly…”

“Not at all.” In orderly fashion, the children all line up, and Claire is handed, still red-faced, into the arms of a waiting matron. “They’ve all done amazingly today, Cyril especially.” She pauses. “Speaking of. Cyril, I believe there is someone waiting for you.”

His eyes widen, and he turns to the doorway where Catherine and Shamir are waiting, running over with his bow clutched tightly. “I’m sorry for skipping our lesson!” he says hastily, turning as red as the sunset. “I got caught up helping Professor Eisner and His Highness, and I lost track of time, and—”

“Cyril.” Shamir sounds  _ highly _ amused. “Calm down. I’m not upset. We can always find another time. Besides, Byleth’s probably better at the teaching thing than I am.”

“She told me I had a good form,” he says, pride tinting his tone. “I hit a bullseye in front of  _ everyone.” _

“Eyy, not bad at all!” Catherine pats him on the shoulder twice, and immediately feels like a proud mother.  _ Saints, I really am turning into an old hag. _ “Trust me when I say that if Byleth complimented you, it really means you deserve it.”

Shamir smiles. “She’s an honest one, alright. How’d you like working with her?”

There’s a loud crashing sound, and then a string of frantic apologies fills the air as the three of them turn to face the damage. Prince Dimitri, bless him, is profusely apologizing for what seems to be a collision between him and Byleth, the latter seemingly crushed beneath a stack of training targets. Instead of taking the hand offered to her, Byleth unravels her legs from beneath her and contorts her whole body, emerging unscathed from the mess in feline fashion. There isn’t even any dust on her pants. Whatever she tells the prince is drowned out with a loud “WHAT?”, and then another hundred babbled reps of  _ I’m so sorry, Professor. _

“She’s a weirdo,” Cyril says earnestly, and Catherine is inclined to agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ouch and oof sorry for the late chapter lads, i've been caught up with some irl stuff (thankfully not the plague) and i didn't have time to polish off this chapter. fortunately i have a free weekend before school starts and i'm going to use it to write and extort food from my cousin  
> i've been refining my crest inheritance theory (tldr epistasis but more) so Hanneman's bit was really interesting to write, but hands down the most fun i had was writing Jeritza and Byleth's spar. i watched a handful of HEMA videos and read a fencing manual from 1889 _(Cold Steel_ by Alfred Hutton, for those looking!) and then i winged the rest. i didn't think i'd ever feel like this but Jeritza's fun to write. i like bullying him with the weird sexual tension of a good spar
> 
> * * *
> 
> re: my update schedule, i've no more completed chapters in reserve and school is about to start. while i think this semester's not going to be half bad, i would still like to have some chapters ahead of time, since i'm no longer the writing machine i used to be in high school. as such, i'm going to be taking an extra week until the next chapter - that is, the chapter should be up on the 24th as opposed to the 17th. i'm really sorry for the delay, and i hope i'll be able to get a lot done in time. thank you all for all the support; it really means a whole lot.  
> i'll see you all again soon!


	19. skipping rhymes and other assorted poisons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plants, anyone?

“The grass-lilies are growing so well this year,” Dorothea muses, expertly plucking one by the stem and adding it to her growing chain. “And so recently too! Why, it feels like they simply _exploded_ overnight after we came back from last month’s mission.”

She links the two ends of the chain with a leafy knot and settles it into Petra’s thick hair. “There we go,” she murmurs, patting it down where it sticks up over her braid, “a crown fit for a princess.”

Petra reaches up hesitantly to feel for the flowers are sitting in her hair. “In Brigid, princesses do not wear crowns,” she tells Dorothea seriously, even as the older girl tenderly pushes a strand of her loose hair behind her ear. “Not even my grandfather wears a crown, not on top of the hair. We are having a different kind of—” she gestures with her hands, around her forehead to the back of her head. “I am not knowing the right word, my apologies.”

“A diadem, Petra. D-I-A-D-E-M. Here, I’ll make it bigger so we can tug it over your hair and wear it like a diadem, okay?”

“Diadem,” Petra echoes. “I would be wanting that much, Dorothea, you have my thanks.”

A distance away, Leonie sifts through the grass on hands and knees, eyes lighting up as she dives for a little blue flower. “Gotcha,” she says triumphantly, scooting over to pass it to Ingrid, who has strung up an impressive chain of them already. “I think that’s all of them for now.”

“Good.” Ingrid lifts the chain over her head; it trails for at least a metre across the ground. “Thanks, Leonie. I really appreciate the help.”

“What’s so bad about these anyways?” Hilda asks, still deftly chaining endless flowers onto the other end. Her fingers move at dizzying speeds, tucking and folding and tugging through. “They’re just blue spears, right? We have some at home. I didn’t even realize they were wildflowers!”

Leonie frowns. “We call them featherfall flowers in Sauin,” she explains. “If the pegasi eat them… well, it makes their feathers fall.”

“And they’re no fun for making garlands, either. In Faerghus, giving someone a garland of blue spears means you’re bidding them farewell forever.” Ingrid’s usually stern face turns a touch mischievous. “I know this because I gave one to His Majesty when we were nine, and he _thanked_ me for it. My mother was _so_ cross with me.”

A collective giggle. Bernadetta emerges from the other side of a little hill and dumps an armful of wildflowers into the circle of chittering girls. “Oh, thank you Bernie!” Dorothea gasps, leaning up to smack a playful kiss to Bernadetta’s cheek. For her part, Bernadetta squeals, turns bright red, and sits with a _thump_ in the grass. “My, you’ve collected so many. We’ll have plenty to chain now.”

She turns to the dirt patch where the triangle attack incident (that must not be spoken of!) occurred; someone’s filled it in since, and Edelgard is sitting on the edge of it, mindlessly pinching petals off a now-bare flower. “Edie,” Dorothea cooes, kneeling behind the younger girl and wrapping her arms around her shoulders. Edelgard flinches; Dorothea’s smile turns sour and she lets go. “Aren’t you going to join us? You’ve plucked this area clean. Bernie brought us a bunch of flowers.”

Slowly, focus returns to Edelgard’s eyes, and she puts a delicate gloved hand on Dorothea’s. She seems so fragile when she smiles. “I’d love to.”

* * *

The blackboard says _TAKE ONE_ in giant letters; the desk carries a mess of skipping ropes, and so the students who wander in oblige. There’s already the rhythmic sound of jute against dirt, the cloud of dust rising in the courtyard. It’s a lovely day—perfect for exercises in the sun, and to get to pretend to be a kid again, if only for a while.

But Byleth wasn’t never really a child, was she? And even if she was, it must have been so very long ago that her father first gave her the wood-bobbin handles and said _here, swing this over your head, and when it hits the ground you jump._ She must have caught on quickly, as she did most physical activities. _An aptitude for the battlefield,_ her father had called it, with half a chuckle.

Now, with the rope whirring around her, Byleth thinks maybe he’d been a little afraid, too, of his too-quiet daughter with her mother’s curious eyes. She jumps five times and crosses her arms once, again and again and again, until her calves start to burn with each rep and her heart threatens to hammer out of her chest.

The rope hits the ground one final time, and she tugs the bobbins behind her to collect it all. “Good morning,” she tells her assembled class. “As you might have noticed, we are going to skip rope today.” She gestures at the sky. “I understand some of you were expecting to be indoors. I apologize. I was expecting rain, and I haven’t finished marking your post-mission analysis assignments yet so we can’t quite go over those like I intended to.

“However, I can certainly speak for what I’m seeing so far. I’m seeing a significant growth in critical analysis compared to the last assignment, particularly in regards to tactics. I’m glad to see that all of you are finding room to grow instead of endlessly putting yourselves down.” She frowns. “However, I have also seen a rise in spelling mistakes. You are allowed to correct any mistakes in the margins, so I encourage all of you to proofread your own papers, and if possible each other’s.”

She looks around the courtyard. It’s just her and her students; no one else here to intrude on a very private moment. “I’m sorry,” she says. “For many of you, I presume that mission involved your first kill.” Several of the students have eyes blown wide open; Edelgard has her hands over her mouth. “We as teachers, as a faculty, don’t pay enough attention to the lessons we’re teaching. I don’t want your main takeaway from this mission, this school year, to be that all problems can be solved through senseless violence. Pick your battles when you can. I’m just here to teach you for when you can’t.”

 _“A little dark for nine in the morning,”_ Sothis tells her, though with no small amount of commiserating grumble. _“Go on, get them moving around again.”_

“Without further ado, let’s get moving,” Byleth says loudly. “We’re going to work on stamina and coordination today by skipping rope. Some of you have long ropes for a few jumpers, and some of you have short ropes for one person. I’ll try to let you all know when to switch every five minutes or so.” She pulls her own rope taught around her ankles, and begins a light hopping pattern. “That is all.”

The class disperses quickly, forming groups and clusters. Byleth watches as Linhardt and Caspar bicker over the speed at which they turn the rope, while Edelgard, Hubert and Ingrid stand nearby in varying degrees of amusement and frustration. Felix is taking off like a whirlwind, completing at least two turns of the rope for every jump. A short distance away, Lysithea, Raphael and Bernadetta are laughing as they untangle themselves from a mess of rope.

 _“They seem to be having fun,”_ Sothis comments wistfully. _“Why, you could have the little ones skip rope as well, the next time you have your little tutoring sessions with the prince! I’m sure they would enjoy it just as much.”_

 _Fair enough,_ Byleth concedes. There’s no denying that her students are getting creative with their rope skipping, enthusiastically yelling numbers and chanting with increasing volume. Soon, the whole class is chanting along with gusto, and Byleth has to stop and wonder what cultural memo she missed this time.

“Petra went walking by the sea,” Sylvain and Claude shout, as Petra laughs and bounces between the swings of the rope. “She picked up a flame up on the way! It dried her up to the last drop; now she’ll live another day!” Another swing, and Petra has ducked out of the way for Dimitri to take her place jumping. “Dimitri went walking ‘cross the sand, he picked saint’s bonnet on his way…”

They seem so carefree, and for a moment Byleth feels her heart clench in her chest in envy. She can’t blame her father for raising her outside the confines of society and popular culture, less so for having an eidolon of a daughter, but she can’t help but long for these simple things that tie her students together so easily despite their differences.

“Alright, let’s take a break,” she calls, and the jumping and the hooting and the laughter comes to a grinding halt. “Two minutes, and then we’ll switch up. If you were cranking a rope earlier, you get to jump now.” She hands her own rope to a small group—Annette, Mercedes, Ferdinand and Ignatz, standing in a breathless clump. “A question for you all.”

Annette grins, still doubled over from jumping and laughing. “Ask away, Professor!”

“That rhyme all of you were chanting earlier, what was it?” Byleth asks. “I heard some lines about… living another day?”

The students exchange an incredulous look. “It’s a skipping rhyme, Professor,” Mercedes says. “A childish one, really, but it’s quite commonly learned from a young age because it warns against some highly toxic plants.”

“It’s fascinating how it doesn’t change regionally, despite many of the plants mentioned being native to certain parts of Fódlan,” Ferdinand muses. “And the names change regionally as well! In the Empire, we call saint’s bonnet _Cethleann’s_ bonnet instead, and yet as a child I recall being taught the version of the rhyme with saint’s bonnet instead.”

“And the lyrics don’t change either.” Annette seems to run through the rhyme mentally, counting off her fingers. “Yeah, _everyone_ seems to know the exact same rhyme. It’s so weird! I didn’t realize it was all the same all across Fódlan until just today.”

“Huh.” Byleth’s pedagogy of plants, for the most part, can be summed up as _don’t._ Why eat a plant that could make you blind when instead you can eat game, which is safe as long as you cook it right? “Never heard it before.”

“That’s alright,” Mercedes assures her. “You can join us the next round!”

“Miss von Martritz, I have to decline—”

But she and Annette are already off, chattering as they take either end of a rope and start swinging. Ignatz sways in place for two cycles before rushing into the fray, and they begin chanting again, and that sets the whole class off, rapidly abandoning their single-person ropes to form lines behind the longer ones. “Don’t worry, Professor, you’ll get it in no time!” Ferdinand says cheerfully. “The rhyme really is simple if you know what the plants do, anyhow!”

And then someone gently shoves her in the back, and Byleth finds herself skipping a rope currently swung by Dedue and Marianne. “You’ve it, Professor!” someone calls from behind her; it sounds like Dorothea, for all that her voice is climbing into melodious laughter. The swing of the rope and the _thump_ of her feet strike up a rhythm, and the class starts to chant:

_Professor went walking ‘cross the sand_

_She picked saint's bonnet on the way_

_It set fire to her shirt_

_Now her mama won't let her play_

_Professor went walking by the coast_

_She picked some cliffron on the way_

_It dashed her down on the rocks_

_Now her mama won't let her play_

_Professor went walking through the woods_

_She picked ladypoppy on the way_

_It turned her face blue as the moon_

_Now her mama won't let her play_

_Professor went walking through the woods_

_She picked some monk's rose on the way_

_It made her sleep like a log_

_Now her mama won't let her play_

_Professor went walking on the marsh_

_She picked some marshbright on the way_

_It stole her eyes and left her blind_

_Now her mama won’t let her play_

_Professor went walking up the hill_

_She picked dragonsbane on the way_

_It roared and popped her head right off_

_Now her mama won't let her play_

_Professor went walking by the sea_

_She picked up a flame on her way_

_It dried her off till the last drop_

_Now she'll live another day!_

She takes a wild leap, and lands just out of the reach of the rope, just in time to turn to see Dorothea and Edelgard taking her place and striking up a playful dance between jumps. “Not too shabby, Professor!” Leonie quips, grinning as she whirls the rope around and around for a squealing Hilda. “You’ll get it in no time!”

“I’m sure I will,” Byleth says, still a bit shaken from the rhyme. Leonie doesn’t seem to notice this, and turns her attention back to her classmates; all the better for Byleth, who stands unmoving, trying to process the words that are still rattling around like loose cannonballs in her mind. _Is this what they teach these kids when they’re still barely old enough to wield a weapon?_

The rhyme, for all that it is childish, laughs at her in the depths of her mind. _Now her mama won’t let her play,_ it crows. _Now her mama won’t let her play._

* * *

> _Fódlan is a land dappled in crimson and azure and verdant sunlight, from its snowy peaks to sunken riverbends. Life peers out at every corner in most fascinating ways, almost shamelessly at times. The Teutates loach under the ice of a frozen pond lives just as the hill-lily forcing itself out of parched soil. Every inch of Fódlan shines with the grace of the Goddess, and we mortal men are fleeting in comparison. Nations may rise and fall, castles can crumble, but Fódlan remains ever beautiful._
> 
> _This book is an ode to that beauty. It is a celebration of the wonders of the Goddess in the eyes of our fleeting mortal lives. I first felt that in the gardens of Garreg Mach, watching the sun rise over the ancient stones; now, I am but an old man penning memoirs of his youth. There is beauty to be found in this world of ours, and I want to share that with all of you._
> 
> _— excerpt from preface of_ **_Native Flora and Fauna of Fódlan,_ ** _first edition, by Emmett Ventura et. al, 1045_

* * *

It starts raining just after dinner.

Claude takes this in good stride. He’d been a little upset at his perfect streak of rain prediction being broken, but then there were splatters on the windows of the mess hall, and he’d given Hilda a shit-eating grin and gotten up to send his plates to the wash. Maybe if he negotiates with Professor Eisner, she’ll give him the mark anyway. Not that he needs the bonus performance marks; he’s doing fairly well in her class, though he has the sneaking suspicion that she’s just passing everyone on principle instead of doing any real marking.

It’s just been a fun game, and Claude hates to lose games he knows he can win. The fact is this: Professor Eisner’s leg always fidgets, probably unintentionally, the day before a rainshower. It’s always the one she wears a guard over the knee, so he supposes she probably injured it at some point, and now it reacts to the changes in the air. So far, he’s gotten every single day correct for her performance mark just by studying the way she walks around their classroom or in the courtyard.

And judging by the way she’s seated crosslegged effortlessly in the greenhouse, book balanced between her knees, it seems like his prediction for tomorrow might be correct, too. “I had not known,” she says when Claude approaches, “that the dried rind of the Noa fruit is used as a spice in parts of Leicester.”

“Oh yeah, it’s actually a staple of Leicester cuisine.” Nevermind that the only Leicester-style cooking he’s had was on odd occasions when his mother managed to seize control of the kitchen for the day. “For the best Derdriu-style pheasant, you’re supposed to season it with the dried rind for a few hours. And you shouldn’t fry it either, that just makes it greasy. It’s best served grilled, and with flatbread if you can get your hands on some.”

“I wasn’t aware that you were such a connoisseur of food, Mr. von Riegan,” Professor Eisner muses.

Claude grins. “Not so much a connoisseur as someone who likes to know what’s in his meal at all times.”

He peers down into her page. It seems to be that of an encyclopedia, judging by the entries placed in perfect alphabetic order. _The fruit of the Noa Tree. Usually classified as a citrus. Harvested during the Blue Sea Moon. Characterized as having violet flesh, a pale green pith that typically tints due to the flesh, and an outer peel that ranges from milky white to burgundy depending on the sunlight exposure._

“It’s the first edition of _Native Flora and Fauna of Fódlan,”_ Professor Eisner explains. “After the rhyme that everyone was chanting, I went to find the rhyme transcribed. Nothing in the library had a copy, so I got the next best thing.” She lifts the whole book, and briefly Claude sees the sticker on the back that says, in Father Seteth’s neat print, _DO NOT REMOVE FROM LIBRARY._ “It’s not helping much.”

“That’s because the book won’t give you the context of the rhyme,” Claude notes. “I think all of the plants in the rhyme are in the greenhouse…” A quick mental run of the rhyme confirms this, and he beckons to Professor Eisner. “Well, all but one, anyhow. Here, I’ll show you. First one is saint’s bonnet, right?”

She sets the book down on the bench, and follows him to a patch of stubby succulents growing in sand. _“Claude went walking through the sand, he picked some saint’s bonnet along the way,”_ he recites, _“it set fire to his shirt, now his mama won’t let him play.”_ He carefully notes the way Professor Eisner flinches at the last line, and tucks the information away for later. “You can read the rhyme two ways, really. What did Mercedes tell you?”

“That it was a warning. The book said so, too—saint’s bonnet can cause spontaneous combustion upon consumption.” She tilts her head. “But it also said that the gelatinous substance inside the leaves can be applied to burn wounds. Do you mean to tell me that each of the verses of the rhyme has a double-meaning relating to the plant’s medicinal properties?”

“Got it in one, Teach!” He squats to deftly twist a leaf off its stem, breaking it in half to show the sticky strings of the gel inside. “You can also put this on open cuts if you’re in a rush—it helps your skin grow quicker, but it stings like there’s no tomorrow. If you’ve ever had someone smother that clear cream on your burns after a battle—”

“No way.” Professor Eisner looks like she’s having a revelation fit for the second coming of Saint Seiros. “That’s just this gel?”

“Reduced from simmering for several hours, but yes.” He points behind the sand area, into the framework of rocks that line the side of the artificial stream. “The second verse is about cliffron—see those little flowers growing along that rock structure? That’s cliffron. I’m amazed they managed to get it to grow here. The line is _dashed him down on the rocks,_ which refers to the fact that it grows on cliff faces.”

“But it also stops internal bleeding when taken orally, hence the _dashed on the rocks_ line,” Professor Eisner finishes. “I can’t fathom that all of this is contained in a _child’s rhyme.”_

Claude laughs. “That’s Fódlan for you. Can’t have a child’s rhyme without it hiding behind six layers of hidden meanings and a breastplate for good measure.”

He shows her the other plants in the rhyme, too: monk’s rose, causing its victims to _sleep like a log_ but having a fruit that, when ripened, can act as a sleep aid; marshbright that _stole their eyes and left them blind,_ but reveals an edible and highly nutritious tuber when dug up; dragonsbane flowers that he keeps her away from, for all that they _roared and popped their head right off,_ but could treat headaches when processed. “The only one that isn’t here is ladypoppy,” he says. “That’s the third verse— _it turned their face blue as the moon._ It’s been used in assassinations before. I think that’s how it got its name, actually.”

Professor Eisner nods. “The assassination of Lady Christine von Hresvelg,” she says, “it was mentioned in the book. And what of its medicinal properties?”

Claude shrugs. “None that I know of, but the root grinds into a beautiful blue pigment. I know it was _all_ the rage in Derdriu last summer to wear it as eyeshadow.” He leans in with a conspiratorial grin. “I bet if you ever needed it, Hilda’s probably got some in her pack.”

And to his surprise, Professor Eisner honest-to-god smiles at that. She huffs a little, which he assumes must be her attempt at a laugh. Even though it’s muted, it’s a pleasant sound, one that makes Claude’s heart leap into his throat for a second. “I’m sure she does.”

In that moment, Claude feels like he could trust his entire life to Professor Eisner. Why wouldn’t he? She’s capable and graceful, and has more than enough experience. Sure, she’s locked in an eternal deadpan and struggles to emote, but that doesn’t matter on the battlefield, when she’s a force of nature out to level the earth. She’s the quintessential mercenary and the perfect warrior—a stoic, fearless leader who always has her people in her heart.

Then her smile drops, and the moment ends. In her eyes flicker something dangerous, and Claude is reminded that she herself is very much dangerous, a weapon of sorts that multiple parties are fighting for. He knows of her attempts to remain neutral, arranging extracurricular meetings with each of the house leaders and making them mingle in class, but in the end all three of them know that she’ll be the deciding factor in Fódlan’s future.

And it’s not just them. Claude has seen the way Archbishop Rhea looks at their dear professor, with the eyes of a proud mother and then some. For whatever reason, the Archbishop dotes on Professor Eisner like one might a friend’s daughter—which would make sense, given Captain Jeralt was the captain of the Knights of Seiros for a substantial amount of time.

 _Or,_ he thinks, calling to mind the fascinated pride with which the Archbishop had watched Professor Eisner when she’d carried that candle down to the altar, _she dotes on her like one might a creation. Like one is amazed that said creation is working._

Whatever it is, he hasn’t unravelled it just yet. Something’s up with the Archbishop and Professor Eisner; neither of their highnesses have realized just yet, or maybe they’re just stewing on the information, waiting for a good chance to use it like Claude is. He’ll figure it out eventually, like he always does.

“The last verse doesn’t really have a risk associated with it, doesn’t it?” Professor Eisner asks. “Uh, _picked a flame up on the way?_ I suppose that the phrase really just reminds you to stay warm should you ever find yourself in water.”

“But then you wouldn’t be _dried up till the last drop,”_ Claude argues, “and if you were, you’d be dead as well. It’s an odd verse, the last one. A transition to the next jumper, really.”

She doesn’t look satisfied with the answer, but nods regardless. “I should water my vegetables,” she says as means of ending the conversation, and rushes off towards the water basin. Claude mentally mourns the loss of conversation already as he follows behind, getting one of the watering cans stashed in the corner and plunging it into cool water. Despite the stillness of the basin, it’s not stale, as though frozen in time—a fragment of some stagnant future.

Almost too quickly, he retracts his hands. Water splashes everywhere. Professor Eisner doesn’t even turn to look. At least his watering can is full.

The belladonna is starting to branch across the top and diverge into tiny leaves, each still curled up with the dredges of winter sleep. It won’t flower for another several months, but with the swirl of aether throughout the greenhouse it shouldn’t be hard to keep it flowering. That’s the beauty of the greenhouse: he doesn’t have to worry about flowering seasons when the building keeps everything in season for him. A belladonna plant would be a risk, yes, but only to the students who are fool enough to eat berries glistening black as death. To Claude, it opens a world of opportunities.

Professor Eisner is already seated at the bench again, having yanked a few carrots out of the ground and rinsed one off with water from her can. As Claude watches in silent fascination, she pulls her knife from its sheath and starts paring the skin off the spindly thing. “The first harvest,” she says, blind to the way Claude marvels at the shining blade pushed up against the pale pad of her thumb. “Want one?”

“Aw, you know I can’t refuse, Teach.”

A few deft slices later, the carrot is in four thin strips, two of which are in Claude’s hands. “Thanks, Teach,” he mumbles, flipping over the carrot strip to look at the segment of clear yellow core down the centre. Were it anyone else, he wouldn’t be so eager to try, but he watched her grow this in earth, and frankly he doesn’t think she wants him dead this early in the school year.

The carrot is sweeter than the ones they serve in the mess hall, and crunches between his teeth. A memory arises unbidden: golden summers, laughter, hills covered in pale blossoms that turned to flame in the sunset and dirty hands rinsed in the clear stream instead of the washbasin. Claude blinks, and those memories he once called _home_ fade away as Professor Eisner chews her own carrot stick thoughtfully—and loudly. “Mmhmm?”

“Not bad, Teach!” He grins at her—nicely, as nicely as he can—and makes the grandiose gesture of holding the carrot up to the meek candlelight. “You’re going to put the mess hall out of business if all your harvests are this good.”

“Ah. Well.” She pops the other carrot stick in her mouth nonchalantly. “I had plenty of guidance.”

“Aw, you flatter me, Teach.”

They sit there in silence for a bit, listening to the hum of the sigils carved into the greenhouse glass. Professor Eisner polishes off her carrots, and starts to peel another. Claude turns what he has over and over in his hands, looking at it from all angles.

There are two things that Claude is certain about the last mission: Professor Eisner had a member of her old mercenary band haul the unconscious bandit leader back to Garreg Mach, and the man is now dead. There is no evidence to suggest that she has any intention to kill him; on the contrary, there is no evidence to suggest that she wants to keep him alive. He’d be a fool to trust her now, given the circumstances, and frankly he doesn’t give out his trust all that easily to begin with.

But then her thumb slips and she immediately jams it into her mouth, and Claude’s inclined ever so slightly to check the blood on the knife, just to see if she bleeds red or gold, or black and blue. “Here, Teach, I can patch that up,” he says, running to pinch another leaf of saint’s bonnet. It cracks between his fingers, oozing into his bowstring calluses. “Better not get it infected.”

“I’ll be fine,” Professor Eisner insists, but she sticks her thumb out for him to apply the gel to anyway. Some part of him is almost disappointed to see that she bleeds red, almost hoping that she’d live up to her moniker and that he’d be wiping away ash from her wound.

(But then again, hasn’t he already seen her bloodied and bruised? Standing triumphant in the rain, sins washing away into the holy ground of the canyon?)

Maybe it’s there, seeing her watch her cut heal itself, that he decides she’s only human after all. Maybe it’s then that he decides that it’s okay to trust her. She’s only human, after all, and if nothing else that’s one common point between them. If she wants to maintain peace in Fódlan, then all the power to her; Claude hasn’t had enough of a taste of peace to tell her it’s too far out of reach just yet.

And he doesn’t know why he’s trusting her with this information, but then her wound closes it off, and he has to speak out before the silence drowns him.

“Hey, Teach,” he says, turning the piece of leaf in his hand, “there _is_ an explanation for that last line of the rhyme. You know how I said there were two ways to interpret the rhyme earlier?”

“Mmhmm?”

“I lied.” He watches her face, revels in the split-second widening of her eyes. “There’s three. I can guarantee you even Mercedes wouldn’t know the third one. Hell, I don’t think _anyone_ in the class would know. My best bet would be Marianne, or maybe Hubert, but aside from them? Definitely _no one_ else.”

She drops her knife and carrot in her lap, turning to him with her head tilted to one side. “I’m listening.”

“Most of the time when you get poisoned by anything, every healer’s first instinct is to reach for the antitoxin, right? And sure, I get it, who doesn’t love a good antitoxin.” He flicks the leaf to the ground and grinds it underfoot; smoke trails after his boot when he retracts it. “But antitoxin is primarily magic, meaning it’ll mess with your fields in the long run, and besides, it doesn’t work on everything.” He points at the smouldering mess of saint’s bonnet on the ground. “Case in point. By the time the antitoxin gets into you, the toxic part of saint’s bonnet is no longer _toxic._ Most Fódlanese plants are like that. Their toxin turns to magic and then it cooks you from the inside out or makes you go loopy or whatever.”

“So the antitoxin can no longer target it,” Professor Eisner says with dawning realization. “And so it doesn’t work.”

“Right on the money, Teach! That’s why they tell kids not to eat this stuff. There’s no cure.” He pauses, waiting to see if she has any reaction. She doesn’t. He moves on anyway. “Except there is. If you can make an antitoxin that targets both _toxin_ and _magic,_ then you can basically deal with just about anything. Heh, you know in Valentian, the word for _curse_ and _poison_ are one and the same? Most Valentian poisons are entirely magical, it’s really fascinating.”

“Mr. von Riegan, your point.”

“Right, sorry Teach. My point is, if you can make an antidote that works in the same way as these plants—” He gestures across the greenhouse widely, as a lord might survey his lands. “Then you’d be able to counter just about anything. And what better to make an antidote with than the very plants that it’s meant to cure?”

For good measure, he pops the remaining carrot stick in his mouth dramatically to end his speech. Professor Eisner’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead as she chews on this information in silence. “So on the surface level the rhyme is about avoiding plants, because they will kill you if you eat them,” she says.

“Yep.”

“And if you go one step deeper, you can find the medicinal properties of all those plants.”

“Yeah.”

 _“And_ if you go _even_ deeper, you get a recipe for the most powerful antitoxin ever created.”

“Three for three!” Claude springs to his feet and mimes fanfare on his carrot stick. “There you go, Teach, you’ve unlocked the secrets of the universe. Hip, hip, hooray and all that.”

She looks equal part amused and contemplative, brow ever so slightly furrowed. “How does that work?” she asks, hands fidgeting uncomfortably around the grip of her knife. “What does each verse tell you? To put that plant in the pot?”

“Not quite. The verses tell you what _part_ of the plant to add.” In his mind’s eye, he pulls up the rhyme again. “First one’s the hardest, I think. _Singed their shirt,_ right? You have to toast the petals. _Dashed upon the rocks,_ you grind the threads of cliffron; _turned their face blue_ means to use the blue part of ladypoppy—the root. Up until the end: _walking by the sea_ means you fill your pot with salt water, and then _dried till the last drop—”_

“—you let it simmer for hours until only a drop remains,” Professor Eisner finishes. For the first time, Claude notes, there’s awe in her voice. “I’m assuming that it will look different by then?”

“Yep. You’ll know when it’s done. The other plants start breaking down because of the saint’s bonnet around the hour-mark, and then after that you’re just reducing it from a soup down to a sludge, really.” He grins. “So yeah. It’s not a _perfect_ antidote, because it takes so long to make so little, but it’s a universal antidote. Works on any poison you throw at it.”

“Huh.”

Claude sits back down beside her as she hauls the encyclopedia back up on her knees and flips through it, stopping on the entries of each plant in the rhyme. It’s only when she snaps the book closed that he turns his attention back to her. “I’d never have thought that you could pack so much into one skipping rhyme,” she says quietly. She catches his gaze, something like curiosity peeking through her usual deadpan. “And why do you know how to make this?”

He shrugs. “Same reason that I like to know what’s in my meals.” He clasps his hands together before him, elbows propped on his knees. “But to be honest with you, Teach, I don’t like watching when people suffer, not my own. And that means I gotta be careful with what I work with. Have backups here and there.”

“Is that why you told me?”

“Well, sure. You look to the long run, Teach. Instead of just getting rid of the bandits, you went to the source of the problem. No doubt you’ll have much better use of the antidote than I ever will.”

“That remains to be seen.” Professor Eisner allows him one small lift of her lips—saints above, a smile! “Thank you, Mr. von Riegan. I’m not sure if I’ll have the time to sit down and reduce a pot of salt water for several hours, but it’s good to know this information. It could save lives.”

“Then it’s well worth telling you.”

The entire greenhouse lights up for a second as lightning strikes one of the monastery spires, crackling all the way. Thunder follows a heartbeat later, and last of all the renewed sound of rain drumming on glass. “So it did rain after all,” Professor Eisner remarks. “I’ll have to update my sheet for that.”

“So does that mean my perfect streak will continue, Teach?”

“Today, yes.” She pauses. “I’d love to hear how you’re getting so accurate with these everyday.”

Claude grins. “Ah, that’s a secret for another time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOO it has been a DOOZY of a three week break but i'm BACK, BABY, AND I AM so completely and utterly swamped in schoolwork plz send help  
> i'm like mildly obsessed with toxic plants so this was really fun to write! most of the plants mentioned in the skipping rhyme are inspired by two real plants - eg. marshbright takes inspiration from the deadly nightshade and its friendly cousin the potato; monk's rose has elements of passionflower and climbing roses, etc. the overall rhyme was inspired by [Skipping Rhymes For The New Age](https://medium.com/resistance-poetry/skipping-rhymes-for-the-new-age-3a9c5e0e90a5) by Kate Holly-Clark!
> 
> * * *
> 
> so the new semester is kicking my ass in ways i never thought possible (read: asynchronous lectures does not a scheduled person make) and to be quite honest i'm no longer certain about the future of my update schedule. i'm constantly swamped in lectures and i'm behind in three courses. we're probably going to be looking at once-a-month updates from now on, unfortunately - i'll try to keep them on thursdays, aiming for the first thursday of every month!  
> in the interim, would anyone be interested in a discord server for the call of yesterday? just as a sort of hub for all the extra-canonical documents and worldbuilding, as well as just as a place to chill and relax and make some new friends while we all fight the good fight against academia. please let me know in the comments if this is something you'd like to partake in!


	20. with flying colours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fish pond has probably seen better days.

“Father Seteth will be joining us in the stables today,” Byleth says. Predictably, this is met with a wave of groans from the class. “I expect all of you to be on your best behaviour.”

It is a beautiful day outside: the sun is shining, there are flowers in the grass, and Byleth woke up to the inevitable sound of her bombay dragging in a dead swallow and noisily eating it on her bedroom floor. That means the cats have finally stopped bringing her “treats”, which, _hooray,_ but that also means it’s perfect flying weather.

It also means it’s time to grab the class (and a few spare heal staves) and head down to the stables for the lesson she told Rhea she’d teach on mounts and animal husbandry. Garreg Mach has a small flock of pegasi that live up on the rooftops and in the rafters, as well as a regular, prize-winning herd that cycles in and out of the stables, and a select number of wyverns entreated only to those who can obey Seteth’s strict instruction regarding them. _Territory issues,_ Manuela had said when Byleth asked a few lifetimes back about the low number of wyverns, and had not explained more.

Now, as they’re heading to the stables, she thinks she gets it: the pegasus flock is swirling overhead, clearly directed into some elegant formation that the class _oohs_ and _ahhs_ over, but it’s like they’re fleeing something. Sure enough, Seteth emerges from behind the clocktower, mounted upon his snarling wyvern. Several of the students start clapping as he makes his gradual descent, sending up plumes of dust as the creature beats its enormous wings into the grass.

“Good morning, Father Seteth,” Byleth says as cordially as she can. Already she can hear snickers behind her. “Impressive entrance. I hope you are faring well?”

“As well as I can,” he says, dismounting. It’s only when he offers a hand to his passenger that Byleth realizes Flayn rode in with him. The other girl gives her a bright grin, and waves excitedly to some of the students. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve offered a ride to my sister.”

“None at all.” Byleth turns to the class, and though it’s obvious all of them are trying to keep a straight face (Hubert looks downright _tortured)_ she at least keeps her tone flat. “Everyone, say hi to Father Seteth.”

“Hi, Father Seteth,” chime her troublemakers innocently.

“And Miss Flayn,” she continues, turning to face her, “will you be joining us for the lesson as well?”

Flayn’s eyes light up, but Seteth speaks first. “She’ll be heading to the pond to go fishing,” he says, giving Flayn a stern look. “Your fishing supplies are in the saddle, Flayn.”

Fortunately, Flayn is made of far stronger stuff, and faces him down with her hands on her hips. “I’ll attend the lesson first,” she says, chin jutted out proudly. “The fish can wait.”

 _Either most people at the Academy are too daft to realize their actual familial relation,_ Byleth muses mournfully, _or most people just have deeply unconventional relationships with their siblings. Is this supposed to be normal?_

 _“You don’t have siblings,”_ Sothis quips, _“so how are you to judge?”_

_Fair enough._

Byleth clears her throat before the staring contest can go on any longer. “You’re always welcome to listen in on my lectures, Miss Flayn,” she says, dodging Seteth’s fiery glare with only the utmost grace and poise. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong in a young woman learning to defend herself, much less be educated in one of the finest institutions in Fódlan.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Flayn beams, and then gives Seteth a look which Byleth _assumes_ must mean _ha, take that!_ in whatever little secret language they’ve had to develop between them. She then strides directly into the bundle of students, where she is promptly adopted into Annette and Lysithea’s little social circle.

Seteth, naturally, looks like he is about to gut Byleth like a fish if she does anything more out of line. She wets her lips and whistles once, loudly, and all the attention comes back to her. “Now, today you’re going to have the chance to check out some of the typical mounts used in battle,” she begins in her Professor Voice. “Here at Garreg Mach, we have access to some excellent stables, as well as a flock of Fódlan’s finest pegasi and several wyverns.” Nevermind that _several_ equates itself to _less than ten_ in this situation. “What’s the first rule of working with mounts?”

“Never put your hand near their teeth, or you will no longer have that hand,” says the entire class in angelic harmony.

“Correct. I know I brought staves for healing, but I’m _really_ hoping those will not be used. Let’s try to keep injuries to a minimum today.” Some laughter in response. “How many of you have ridden horses before?”

Nearly the entire class raises their hands, save a few who she’d already expected. “How about those who have flown a pegasus?” Just Ingrid, which is to be expected as well; most travel in and out of Galatea territory is done via pegasi due to its climate. “And wyverns?”

Flayn’s hand shoots up, causing a ripple of laughter through the class. Petra bites back a laugh, a hand of her own waving in the air. Behind them, Claude stands at the back of the group, hand raised with a cheeky smile. “Neat. So we’ll be starting with the flying mounts, then,” Byleth decides. “With this lovely lady, right here.”

She approaches Seteth’s wyvern slowly, but really it’s quite docile for a beast that weighs a tonne, is strong enough to fly and breathes fire when provoked. “In the wild, wyverns are matriarchal,” she explains. Hey, she’s getting better at ignoring Seteth. “They’re similar to honeybees in that aspect. However, a proper wyvern matriarch doesn’t spend all her time cooped up laying eggs—she’s the fiercest of the whole roost, and will stop at nothing to protect her own. Either as a warning mechanism or as a protective one to help them stand out for their own, wyvern matriarchs will grow white scales after their first clutch, which they retain till death. Garreg Mach’s wyverns are from widely different origins, and most were brought in as eggs, so we’ve what wyvern scholars call a composite roost, where their familial structure is adopted rather than by blood.”

She squats a fair distance away from the wyvern in the grass. “Father Seteth’s wyvern here is the matriarch of the Garreg Mach roost. Familial roosts average anywhere between eighty and ninety individuals, while wild composite roosts typically don’t exceed twenty.” At this range, the wyvern’s eyes are like honey, mellow in colour but lit up with fire from the inside. “Father Seteth, what is your wyvern’s name?”

That seems to catch him off guard. “I—her name,” he splutters, “her name is— She responds to Trish.”

“Trish.” It seems awfully short for the name of a wyvern, and awfully simple. Probably a nickname, then. Byleth shoves her questions aside and focuses on the bright eyes before her. “Hello, Trish. Hello. Hello.”

She closes her eyes as she speaks. “Wyverns are a bit like cats,” she continues in a low voice, “in that they show trust through vulnerability. As you might have noticed, wyverns have no defenses in the back, and because they lean forward on their wings, they struggle to turn around.” A few slow blinks later, and Trish croons at her, a soft _hurk-hurk-hurk_ noise that serves as her only warning before the wyvern lurches forward and—

“Ewww,” Flayn says in the middle distance, a sentiment echoed by Dorothea and exacerbated by someone gagging in the back. Byleth sits back in the grass, utterly covered in wyvern slobber as Seteth rushes forward to scold Trish and Sothis laughs hysterically in her mindscape. “Professor, are you quite alright?”

“I sure _hope_ I am.” She stands up, and a sheet of _slime_ drops off the front of her shirt into the grass. “Alright. I have a page here of your signups for the mounts you all said you wanted to try. Miss Galatea, I’ll be putting you in charge of the pegasi; Mr. von Riegan, you’ll be handling the wyverns; and Mr. von Aegir and Miss Pinelli, I trust the two of you to handle the horses.” She tries to reach for her pocket and only barely succeeds in extracting the sheet to hand off to Seteth. “In other news, does anyone have a wind sigil or a tome with a low-tier wind spell?”

“I’ve one,” says Mercedes, ever helpfully.

“Thank you, Miss von Martritz. I’ll come talk to you about that later.” She turns to Seteth and sketches a bow. “Father Seteth, I’ll be leaving them in your capable hands.”

“Wait,” Seteth says desperately, struggling to keep Trish from following Byleth like a lost puppy, “Professor Eisner, where do you think you’re going?”

“I’ll be back in five minutes, don’t worry.” She stares him in the eye. “I am going to go take a swim in the fish pond.”

And then, before he or the class can splutter out anything more, she goes and does just that.

* * *

The wyvern Petra is assigned to has beautiful, iridescent scales in the sunlight; she cooes and croons and blinks slowly with huge golden eyes. She’s physically affectionate, too, rubbing her muzzle against Petra’s skirt and blowing little puffs of smoke as Petra undoes the buckles on the bridle. “You are such a good wyvern!” she cooes, setting the gear aside to give the wyvern a scratch under the chin. “Were you enjoying the flight? I had much enjoyment, too!”

On the other side of the stables, Claude chuckles. “I’ve rarely seen a wyvern _that_ enthusiastic,” he muses. He’s putting away two sets of bridles—Hilda is too busy playing with another overly-affectionate wyvern to pay attention. “You and her must have bonded quite quickly.”

So he noticed that she’s flying a female wyvern, too. Professor Eisner didn’t pick him to supervise the group with the wyverns for nothing. “She enjoys freedom,” Petra says, “as I do. We are being connected by that.” The wyvern makes a honking noise at her when she retracts her hands, and she can’t help but laugh and give it another scrub between the horns. “Or perhaps she is just enjoying the attention and the scratches.”

“Yeah, probably. Poor girl looks kinda lonely.” Claude reaches out in the exact way Professor Eisner told them _not_ to (that he and Petra have been doing anyway, because the school wyverns are so docile anyway) and gets a curious nuzzle for his troubles. “Aw, I missed the skies. It’s been so rainy lately.” He sniffles. “Pretty rainy for Garland Moon, if you ask me.”

“We have not been having very good flying weather,” Petra says. Claude gives her a commiserating look; a perfectly good spring for flying, wasted. “Were you spending your childhood also flying?”

“Ah, yeah, actually!” This is apparently a good topic to discuss with Claude, who brightens up in an instant. “Been flying since I was, _whew,_ I think ten? Well, my mother let me fly in her saddle even before that, but the first time I flew solo was at ten.”

“Then you are having flown more than I have alone. In Brigid, most children fly for the first time at fifteen.” She scrubs the wyvern’s face scales with both hands, getting a pleased _hmm-hmm-hmm_ in return. “As the crown princess, I was having certain… allowances?”

“Privileges?” Claude suggests.

“Thank you, that is the word I was looking for. My grandfather was allowing me to fly in private when I was twelve.” A wave of nostalgia hits her, nearly hard enough to knock her off her feet: her grandfather’s wrinkled hands, hidden under his flying gloves, wrapped around her much smaller ones as she gripped the reins and dared not look down. The smile that arises as she thinks of her grandfather, old and crippled in his stone halls, is equal parts fond and bitter. “It was… one of the few enjoyments I could have.”

“Yeah.” To her surprise, Claude looks just as torn up about it. “Crown’s a heavy burden, and all that.”

There’s a flurry of wingbeats, and then Ingrid manifests outside the stables, her snowy pegasus only touching down long enough for her to effortlessly slide off its back and pat it on the rump. “Are you guys done?” she says. Her stance is frustrated, like she’s been waiting for a long time, but her face is red with exhilaration, skin lips chapped in the wind. “The pegasi won’t come near the stables unless, well…”

Claude’s there immediately to diffuse the situation with a bright grin. “Gotcha. Predator-prey dynamics and all that.” He gestures at the bridles half-hung on the wall. “We’ll only be a minute—Hilda, what’s happened now. _Saints,_ Hilda, you can’t give a wyvern food and expect it to _not_ lick it out of your palm—”

“IT’S SO _SLIMY,”_ Hilda shrieks. Petra’s sweet wyvern hurgles in her direction disapprovingly, snorts more smoke, and waddles out of the stables to join the rest of her roost in the air. Each powerful wingbeat sends a gust of wind in Petra’s direction, blowing the hair from her face in that same delightful way as the breeze when she’s soaring up over the belltower.

Hilda, on the other hand, seems to have half a mind to join Professor Eisner in the fish pond. While she’s nowhere as drenched in wyvern slobber, the way she holds out her arm like she wants it removed from her body is indication enough that she’s not going to approach a wyvern again for a good while. A shame, too—she seemed so comfortable flying, and Petra has no qualms that she would make an excellent partner in a dogfight.

Ingrid watches with wide eyes as Claude leads the two remaining wyverns out of the stables. She’s skittish, much like the pegasus she flew in on. Petra hadn’t realized it before, but now that she looks, the other girl was _built_ to fly: slender limbs packed with lean muscle, a sword at her hip ready to swing, the hem of her skirt not so low as to detract her from mounting and dismounting. “I would have thought you guys would join me on pegasi,” she says. “Usually, Father Seteth doesn’t allow girls to fly wyverns on their first try.”

“Professor Eisner had given him a list,” Petra points out. “Maybe he was being too scared of her to go against her orders.” She smiles warmly at Ingrid. “You are not having your first flight today, no? I am also not having my first flight. At home, we are having many wyverns, but not many pegasi. I have been flying wyverns for many years.”

“Oh, then it’s just like me with pegasi. Travel in and out of Galatea is hard because of the terrain, so I’ve been flying since I was pretty young.” Ingrid leans out for a second to whistle, and the pegasus-riding girls all descend from the skies. “Alright, everyone, I’m going to teach you all how to take the bridle off a pegasus without having it bite your hand off.”

They stream in, one at a time: Annette already chattering at a hundred miles an hour; Flayn following behind her with a flounce in her skirt and a skip in her step; Marianne matching her every meek step with that of her graceful steed; Lysithea talking steadily to Dorothea and Bernadetta, who look queasy and sneezy respectively. The pegasi that follow are beautiful things, some flapping their wings indignantly as Ingrid begins to instruct the other girls on how to comb them so that they’re comfortable.

“Pegasi can develop a number of problems from standing on solid ground too long with flight horseshoes on,” she’s saying, holding up a horseshoe in example. “Flying horseshoes are sloped and oftentimes studded so that the pegasus can kick out while flying and inflict damage. This makes them unsuitable for long periods of standing or trotting, and can cause inflammation of joints, and sometimes even premature death.”

“Death?” Bernadetta squeaks, only to punctuate it with a sneeze. “Y-you mean a pegasus could fall out of the sky while flying?”

“If you were riding,” Ingrid corrects. “In flight, your main concern are the pegasus’s wings.” She drops the horseshoe to gently coax the pegasus she’s accompanying into spreading out one swanlike wing. “While inflammation of the wing joint can occur, most of the time they don’t falter so much that a pegasus will just drop while flying. Rather, they will lock in place and glide until you land. This is painful, though, so it’s important to comb your pegasus’s wings well for any broken feathers, as those can cause infection.”

Professor Eisner watches from the doorway, having been apparently dried off after her impromptu bath. Her hair is still stuck to her skin in rivulets, impossibly darker from the water. “Miss Macneary,” she says, giving Petra a curt nod. “Did you enjoy your flight?”

There’s no wiping the smile off Petra’s face. “Greatly! Though I would much prefer to be flying longer next time. A short flight is greatly unsatisfactory.”

“I’ll see to it next time, then.” Professor Eisner frowns and shifts her stance uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Weather permitting, of course. You can also ask Father Seteth to book out flights on certain days, I believe, though he does have to supervise.”

Petra nods. “Otherwise, they would be eating the pegasi,” she says.

Apparently, this is the wrong thing to say. All the other girls in the stables go deathly quiet, and even Professor Eisner looks a little overwhelmed. “Are… are Fódlanese wyverns not in the habit of eating pegasi?” Petra asks, feeling immensely small.

“No, they absolutely do,” Ingrid chimes in. Though she looks a little taken aback by the honesty, there’s none of the shock in her eyes that the other seem to have. “It’s no coincidence that pegasus moulting season changes regionally in Fódlan based on the migratory behaviour of local wyvern roosts.” She grimaces. “I’ve seen two of them tear a pegasus in half before. Right down the middle.”

An uncomfortable silence settles into stables as everyone present considers the dangers of keeping pegasi and wyverns together, and moreover _in the same building._ “I’m going to go be sick,” Dorothea announces, and promptly makes a rush for the bucket by the door.

“That’s why the pegasi live up in the rafters,” Professor Eisner says, as Ingrid runs to hold Dorothea’s hair (and her hat) back. “The wyverns are too big to get in, and inside is safe for the pegasi to hide in. We can go up there ourselves and take care of them when needed.”

She turns to help some of the other girls put away their bridles, but Petra stands in the doorway, watching the building around which the wyverns seem to circle ever so often. “But then how will they be leaving the rafters?” she murmurs, ignoring the eyes that are doubtlessly trained on her. “How will they be spreading their wings?”

It just seems like a sad life to live, without that freedom.

* * *

“What’s on your mind?”

Byleth is uncharacteristically quiet tonight, even for her. Jeralt had almost forgotten how quiet his daughter can be when she has a mind to, seemingly trapped in her thoughts for hours on end. She’s gone fishing again, judging by the pot she hauls out of the fireplace; while he’s had mostly soup himself the past few days, it somehow always tastes best when she makes it.

“Rough day of class?” he guesses. “You said you were going to teach the brats to ride.”

“I did,” Byleth finally says—the first thing she’s said since he got back from his mission, aching in every joint. “Got licked by Trish.”

“Trish?”

“Seteth’s wyvern,” she murmurs, taking his bowl unprompted to fill with stew.

Jeralt blinks. “Oh, Beatrice. I didn’t realize he gave his wyvern a nickname.”

That seems to finally catch her attention. Fish chunks slosh over the edge of the ladle as focus returns to her eyes. “Beatrice? She… doesn’t seem like a Beatrice.”

“Are you saying that because you got licked by her, or…”

“Just in general.” The steaming bowl is placed before him, chock-full of hearty carrots and fish. “I let Seteth handle the class so I could take a swim in the fish pond.”

Jeralt very nearly chokes on the next bite of his bread. “You took,” he wheezes, “a swim in the fish pond. Can’t imagine Seteth was very pleased.”

“Nope.”

She pulls up her desk chair, and they eat in silence. All the richness from the fish bones that she made the stock from wafts across the room, mixing with the smoke of the crackling fire. “The carrots add a lot of flavour to this,” Jeralt muses, breaking the oily surface of the stew with a heel of bread.

“I grew them myself,” Byleth says, not without pride. Still, it fades almost immediately, replaced once more by her sullen melancholy.

“Did you now? Nice work, kid. I’ve never had a green thumb.”

Some little part of him rejoices _(Sitri did, Sitri grew all sorts of flowers and vegetables and life seemed to bloom at her heels),_ but twenty years of mourning have tempered him into swallowing the sentiment along with his dinner. “How’d your classes go after that,” he prompts, if only to keep those thoughts down.

Instead of a normal answer, Byleth suddenly sits upright, and turns to the window. “There aren’t going to be intruders at this hour,” Jeralt starts, but his daughter gets up anyway, and opens the window to let in a patchwork ball of… cats? “Or not, I suppose.”

“I told you, I have someone important here,” Byleth asks in her professor voice, stern and commanding. It sounds an awful like the way Jeralt directs his battalions on the battlefield. “No, don’t eat that—you’re not supposed to—”

The ball of cats resolves itself into three distinct cats, one of which Byleth unceremoniously dumps onto Jeralt’s seated legs. “They’re spoiled,” she says, which he takes to mean _I have been secretly feeding the monastery strays and I’ve adopted these three._ “Probably upset that I locked them out during dinner.”

“Well, they can join us now,” Jeralt says, silently bemoaning his freshly laundered trousers. The siamese cat in his lap seems to be content to stay right it is, and curls tightly in a sandy feline swirl, face mashed against his leg. It reminds him a little of Vega, always putting her snout in his lap when she wanted a bite to eat. “Would’ve taken you for a dog person.”

“Me too,” says Byleth, “but it was easier to bribe the cats with treats.”

“Huh. You got names for them?”

Between the bombay padding across the desk and the flicker of the fire, he can’t tell what kind of miniscule emotion passes her face. “Not yet,” she finally says. “They don’t really listen to me.”

“Well, let me know once you decide.” He watches, amused, as she catches the bombay right before it makes a dive for the stew pot. “You, uh, wanna get the lid for that?”

They end up spooning a bit of the stew into smaller dishes for the cats to eat, and Byleth triumphantly claps the lid to the pot. The joy doesn’t seem to last, though, and once she sits down it’s like her entire being shrinks back into her seat.

Jeralt has never known his daughter to be burdened by anything as human as emotion. It’s just one of the facts of life: Byleth treats every situation with the same degree of cold reason, fighting her battles the way she might pick what to eat for dinner or what to teach her class. This side of her that internalizes her worries and _fears_ for her class, that seemingly has a heart that beats like any other—this is too new for Jeralt to understand.

Oh, sure, some part of him still fears that it’s Rhea’s doing, as though she’s poisoning his daughter either through the water supply or with her words, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. He knows Byleth’s tells, and he sees them when she faces down the archbishop like every word is a battle. If anything, he’s proud of her growth, and when he closes his eyes, the surge of anxious energy in the pit of his stomach reminds him that maybe, just _maybe,_ she’ll be ready to take on the world alone if and when he leaves her.

“The Archbishop let me know of this month’s mission assignment,” Byleth blurts, and drops her spoon to fold her hands neatly behind her bowl. “We’re to quell an uprising in the Kingdom. Magdred.”

“Ah.” Jeralt tosses the last of his bread into his bowl. He knows this; he recovered the intel himself. “Lord Gaspard?”

She nods, and it hits Jeralt that for the first time, his daughter looks downright miserable. “His adoptive son is one of my students,” she says, voice brought low. “I… I have the choice to bring any of my four classes with me to that mission. I don’t even have to be the one supervising them. So I asked Ashe.” She looks up as the ragdoll comes mewling again. “Oh, what have you eaten now, you rascal.”

There are flecks of vibrant pink smattered across the ragdoll’s face. Jeralt follows the trail, and finds a neat stack of flower garlands in every colour of the rainbow on a crate in the corner, piled up around her fishing gear. _They’re from her students,_ he realizes as she gets up and fusses over the cat, berating it quietly for eating what it clearly wasn’t supposed to.

“The kid, Ashe,” he says once she returns to poke at her stew again, “he didn’t take the news well, did he.”

If anything, she looks even worse now. “No. I wanted him to know that he could decide whether he wanted to be involved in that battle or not, because I don’t think that’s my choice to make.” Her stare is borderline haunted in the firelight. “I think I upset him with the information that his adoptive father built a militia against the Church.”

Jeralt hums. “Would _you_ be upset if _I_ built a militia against the Church?”

He’s not sure what to expect, but she nods. “It wouldn’t be logical,” she says. “Even though you prefer mercenary work, you wouldn’t go out of your way to dismantle the Church or assassinate the Archbishop. It wouldn’t be you. I’d assume someone else was wearing your name and face.”

 _Well, that’s certainly one way to put it._ “He’s probably feeling the same way,” he says. “Probably doesn’t think his dad is capable of starting rebellion. Hell, they’re Kingdom folk, aren’t they? Kid’s probably religious too. He’s having a hard time connecting the dots.”

“Yeah.” The ragdoll hops into her lap, trilling, and she holds it to her chest. “It’s just… I made him cry, Dad.” Now that’s shame on her face, burning shame that pulls at her eyes but doesn’t dare let the tears fall. She’s never been a crier. “I made him _cry._ I feel—I feel like I’ve _failed him.”_

The fire crackles. The stack of flower garlands in the corner seem heavier than ever. “He tried to hide it from me,” she says, “and he looked so determined when he told me he wanted to meet Lord Gaspard. But his eyes were red. I made him cry.” An exhausted sigh. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Hey.” Jeralt reaches over and ruffles her hair; it’s harder with her ponytail, but he gets by. “Things go out of control all the time. You aren’t Lord Gaspard, and you can’t unbuild a militia. It’s not your fault he has to go through this. You did good giving that kid a choice, okay? Not many others would. You’ve done all you can; he’s gotta decide the rest for himself, just like you said.” He gestures at the stew. “Now, don’t let that go cold.”

The cat slips from her lap. She picks up her spoon again. “Thanks, Dad,” she says, and it fills Jeralt with the same warm pride as it did the first time she called him that. “Lady Rhea’s not gonna let you come with us, again.”

“I know,” he sighs. “I’m starting to think she’s doing this on purpose. Oh well. You’re more than capable of doing this on your own.”

“She’s sending Catherine with us.”

So she’s even crueler than he’d previously thought, sending Catherine to face the father of her ghost. Ironically, his daughter without a heartbeat has more of a heart than the archbishop who delivered her. “Then your students will be in good hands,” he assures her. “Just keep yourself safe too, alright? No more nearly spilling your guts out.”

“It wasn’t that bad of a cut,” she protests.

“It warranted Manuela tattling to me as soon as I got back.” He raises an eyebrow, and she relents and returns to her stew. “Take care, okay? There are some blows you don’t have to take for them.”

At that moment, the bombay soars over the desk, and it’s only thanks to Byleth’s razor reflexes that no paws end up in the pot. “Go catch a mouse or something. Stop trying to eat my dinner.”

“They’re enthusiastic about your cooking, kid.” Jeralt watches as Byleth sets the cat down on the floor and reaches for the ladle, wearing a frown but spooning more fish chunks for the cats. The ragdoll mewls loudly, perched in front of the fireplace with its fur seemingly caught aflame, and only comes scampering over when food is presented once more. The siamese in his lap doesn’t even bother moving. “Say, did you want to give the cats names?”

“Yeah,” says Byleth, carding her fingers through the ragdoll’s fur. “Usually pet owners give their pets names.”

Jeralt smiles. “Are you taking suggestions?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good news, friends, i have my semester under slightly more control than previously anticipated... i think. i mean there are still nights when i'm frantically watching lectures to finish quizzes for 11:55, but i've settled into an excellent rhythm of pomodoros where i brave lectures for 25 minutes and then write fic madly for 5 minutes. it works so i'm not questioning it  
> i wonder a lot about the logistics of keeping wyverns and pegasi in the same army. do the wyverns never attack the pegasi? are pegasi not prey animals in the wild? i read up a bunch of documents on the fragility of horses, and in retrospect i could have asked my sister's friend for equestrian advice but that would be admitting defeat to a 13-year old. either way i think there's gotta be some mad management skills to make sure no pegasi get snatched out of the sky and turned into a wyvern snack.  
> if you think the concept of a wyvern matriarch is inspired by the HTTYD series you are right on the money! i watched the netflix series religiously (up until race to the edge anyhow) and i think it has a major impact on the way i write any kind of dragon now! i just think they're real neat
> 
> * * *
> 
> and in other news, thank you all for your support! the discord server is now live, and available [at this link!](https://discord.gg/WW2WmCt) everyone is welcome to join at any time, and the link should be permanent!


	21. hay fever dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nibbs has some very, _very_ interesting friends.

Some days, Byleth wakes up and thinks, _hey, today is good,_ and why wouldn’t she? The sun is shining, it’s Saturday and she doesn’t have class, and even though she’s almost out of taffy she’s made the arrangement to head to Remire with Flayn. She finally has a chance to rest her aching muscles and treat the click in her elbow that won’t go away. There’s a lot to look forward to.

And some days, Byleth has to wonder, _when did my day get so weird?_

Flayn’s off wandering on her own as soon as the first building comes up over the ridge, and Byleth has to take a moment to look through her pockets to make sure she’s got everything she needs for the day. She put in an order with the blacksmith last month for a new sword that she needs to pick up, and she’s got to stop by the general imports store for more taffy, and of course who would she be if she didn’t visit Nibbs? There’s still a bar of soap left in her pack, but she needs a decent moisturizer for her sword calluses, and there’s just enough coin left in her budget for a treat after that.

Then a shadow looms over her, and Byleth is made presently aware that while she doesn’t consider herself _short_ by any means, she is also nowhere near _tall._

“Ma’am, I’m afraid we can’t allow loitering,” says the giant, who might not be quite as tall as Dedue (is anyone really?) but is certainly just as wide in the shoulders, and has the muscles to match. “I don’t know who you are or where you’ve come from, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you’re just going to stand there.”

Byleth blinks. The man stares her down, unmoving. For a moment she aches to draw the sword sheathed at her side, but a look at his pike, and the _very intimidating and pointy guard on it,_ convinces her to stay her hand.

“I’m a professor at the Officers Academy,” she tells him, falling back into her stoniest face. “I’m here to visit a friend and make some purchases.”

The giant does not waver. “Ma’am, you’re entering our village with arms. We’ve had multiple cases of thieves breaking in during the past week, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m on the skeptical side.”

“Professor!”

And just like that, Flayn is running to her rescue, and the giant visibly does a double take. “They’ve got a new shipment of your favourite taffy at the general imports store,” she chatters, eyes bright, “and there were these _gorgeous_ fish tackles all the way from Crimea! I mean, look at this!” She thrusts said fish tackle into Byleth’s face, perhaps a little more excitedly than was needed.

“That’s fantastic, Flayn,” Byleth tells the colourful streamers. “Are there any more? I might pick one up myself.”

“Oh, there’s this one in red and blue and gold that I think you would absolutely adore!”

The giant’s stance seems to relax out of sheer amusement. “I see. I was mistaken,” he says, nodding curtly. “Miss Flayn, I think the woodshop’s got a new fishing rod handle made for you.” To Byleth: “Professor, I apologize for the holdup.”

“No, I understand,” says Byleth. “I’ve wrangled a few thieves in my time.”

It’s a strange occurrence, but it’s completely understandable. Nibbs mentioned the thieves the last time she came to visit; to have a resident take arms to guard the village is a plausible response. Still, Byleth is almost certain she’s _never_ met this man before, and what kind of villager has a pike like _that?_

The door creaks when she pushes her way into the general imports store, and sure enough, there are fish tackles lined up in canvas bags, each decorated with shimmering streamers made in the water-resistant silk produced in Begion. A look at the price tag convinces her of the purchase, and she picks the one that Flayn suggested—red, blue and gold, with the edges done in pale lavender.

Someone’s chatting up the shopkeep when she approaches the counter, and this is where Byleth’s day goes from _mildly weird_ to _okay, what is happening?_ in a matter of mere seconds as she sizes up the stranger:

1) They are wearing smartly laced boots that, upon further inspection, are steel-toed. They have one foot propped up on a crate of dried goods, and if Byleth squints, she can just make out that the boots have steel _soles_ as well.

2) They are wearing an extremely ill-fitted flannel shirt that is quite obviously made for someone the size of the giant from earlier. Half the shirt is tucked into the waistband of their trousers; the other half is stained with mud.

3) Despite the _no openly carrying weapons_ rule that most of the village seems to have adopted, this individual has a pitchfork that is nearly twice their height, and is somehow wielding it with a better lance grip than most of Byleth’s students.

“And I told him, _you have five seconds before I set you and your cow on fire,_ and he just bolted,” they’re telling the shopkeep, a scowl marring their face. “Dropped everything and ran, the coward.”

“Ah, if only I had the means to light a man and his cow on fire,” the shopkeep sighs, before turning to Byleth. “Miz Eisner, good to see you. The usual?”

“Actually, I’d like three hundred’s worth this time,” Byleth says, putting the tackle on the counter. “And this as well, please.”

As the shopkeep moves to bag her three hundred gold’s worth of Novis Taffy, the fellow with the pitchfork gives Byleth an incredulous look. “That’s a lotta sugar, pal,” they wheeze.

Byleth shrugs. “I only eat about half of it myself.”

Her purchases manage to stay within her budget, which is impressive given how expensive imports from abroad tend to be. Byleth lingers only a little longer, looking over an emerald-set dagger from Archanea and the curvature of a Valentian Wo Dao, all under the silent eye of the pitchfork-wielding stranger. Obviously the threat of the thieves is still ever-present, so she doesn’t blame the townsfolk for being wary of her, but the shopkeep has vouched for her being a regular customer… right?

Outside, it’s still delightfully sunny, and by the position of the sun in the sky, it must be approaching noon. Students and townsfolk are milling around; someone’s brought out a fiddle, and there’s a dance starting up in the square, uniforms mingling with swishing skirts and fluttering steps. Byleth allows herself an indulgent moment of watching her students join hands in laughter and dance. Only the clanging of hammer-on-anvil, out of beat with the clapping hands, reminds her of her next goal here in Remire. The sword she’s currently using is nice, but it’s about due time she replaced it.

(That piece of Sothis in her still aches for the Sword of the Creator, the way it hums in her grasp, but she locks it away. She can’t just walk into the Holy Tomb and take it, after all.)

“Oh,” she says, pushing open the door to the forge, “you’re not Millicent.”

The woman at the forge is not, in fact, the blacksmith who usually runs the shop, but is hammering down a knife all the same. Sparks fly out with each strike, splattering against her apron and her bare, muscled arms. “I’m not,” she agrees with a wry smile. “Just browsing?”

“Er. I’m picking up an order.” Byleth winces as the smith quenches the tip of the blade into a nearby trough of water, sending steam hissing through the shop, and promptly slams it on the anvil hard enough that the cooled tip chips off. “For a steel sword.”

“Name?”

“Eisner.”

The smith hums, leaving the red-hot blade hanging precariously over the anvil. “I’ll be a second,” she says, tossing her apron and gloves aside to reveal a cream-coloured blouse, pristine and almost out of place in the soot-covered shop. Byleth stares at her retreating figure—tall and graceful, the very epitome of a high-society lady, save for the sooty work trousers—and wonders if she’s stepped into a parallel world’s twisted version of Remire.

“Here you are,” the smith says, returning from whatever room hides behind the forge with a cloth-wrapped blade. Byleth accepts it gratefully, pulling back the canvas gently to reveal the sturdy construction: a plain guard and handle, a lightly-engraved pommel large enough to balance the blade, and a sleek fuller that runs just over a hand’s span down the length of the sword. “Milicent’s note says it’ll be nine hundred and ten gold.”

Byleth tucks her new sword under her arm and reaches for her wallet. "One hundred," she murmurs, counting out the coins in her palm before laying them on the counter. "Two hundred. Two fifty." All the while, the smith is watching her agonize over the coins with a face caught in the crossfire of amusement and frustration. "Four hundred," Byleth says, and the expression turns to pain. _Why didn't I count these out last night?_

She gets to nine hundred and ten eventually, sweeping all the coins into a single pile. The smith shovels them all into her open hand, does a final count in mere seconds, and nods. “Nice doing business with you.”

Then she’s slipping the apron over her head again, and the high-society woman disappears in a burst of sparks as she steps on the bellows and gets back to bevelling the knife on the anvil. Even though each strike is smooth and practiced, she looks like she’s in a rush, so Byleth doesn’t even try to stay and make small talk, and slips out the door with her new sword tucked under her arm.

It’s just been such a _surreal_ morning that she’s not entirely convinced that she’s even awake. In all honesty, between the pike-wielding giant, the pitchfork-wielding farmer and the hammer-wielding socialite, she’s not even sure if it’ll be Nibbs sitting at the counter of Ibbott Wares when she enters.

But lo and behold, when the bell jangles at the door a familiar head of dark hair topped with a lilac ribbon pops up from behind low shelf. “Byleth!” she exclaims, rising for all of a second before dropping back behind the shelf with a yelp. “I’m okay!”

Glad that reality has not in fact slipped her by, Byleth rushes to help Nibbs to her feet, finding her friend in a tangled mess of skirt and girl and twine on the ground. “Do you need a hand?” she asks.

Nibbs shakes her head, her grin widening by the second. “I’ll be fine.” As if to prove her point, she hoists her skirts to the side, sticks out a pair of boot-clad feet, and pushes herself off the floor. “I’m glad you’re here! The thief problem has only gotten worse since you last visited. I had to wedge my desk in the doorway in the middle of the night, if you’d believe it!”

“I can imagine,” Byleth says.

“A few folks have gotten some pretty important stuff stolen from them.” Nibbs gestures grandly around her shop. “Thankfully, I haven’t had any major break-ins, though I have to say, I’m offended that these thieves don’t think my soap is worth stealing.” She flaps an errant hand, as though waving away the bad thoughts. “But that’s enough of my troubles! What brings you to Remire? How’s your week been?”

Byleth winces. “Week’s been about the same as always,” she admits. “Uh, today’s been weirder than usual, though. I needed to pick up a sword I ordered last month.” She blinks. “Is Millicent okay?”

“No, the poor thing,” Nibbs sighs. “The forge blew up in her face on Thursday. She’s been strictly on bedrest since. We think someone sabotaged it, I’ve _been_ to that forge a million times and it’s always been fine.”

“Fire is unpredictable,” Byleth tells her, choosing to ignore the fact that Nibbs apparently visits the forge regularly. “More so if the forge runs on magic.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve lit entire batches of soap on fire with a single magical spark before, and a lot of food.” Her eyes go wide, and she snatches up two dishcloths from a nearby rack. “Seiros above, I nearly forgot, I have a batch of cassoulet in the oven!”

She’s off in a second, the hoops of her skirt springing behind her, and Byleth marvels at her sheer energy. There’s never a dull moment with Nibbs; she’s constantly in motion, every movement a dance move instead of a simple action. “You’ve gotta stay for lunch, Byleth,” she’s saying, running back in with a stool in each hand, and she’s sweeping baskets off a table and flipping the sign on the door to say _Closed_ in bold print and she’s everywhere at once, still wearing that smile that could melt even the coldest of hearts. “I’ve got a ton of food, and I’ve got friends coming over for lunch that you can meet, and my cousin’s in town!”

“Nibbs, I really shouldn’t,” Byleth protests, but it’s too late, and Nibbs is already seating her by the table and putting her new sword and her bag on the counter. “Your shop—don’t you have customers to tend to?”

“Byleth, Byleth,” Nibbs sighs, clicking her tongue disapprovingly, “always putting others before yourself, forever and ever, is a surefire way to work yourself into an early grave. I’m only human, and if my customers can’t respect that I’m not sure I want their patronage.” She winks at Byleth as she sets coasters down in the middle of the table. “Don’t you worry. There’s plenty to go around.”

The bell rings, and Nibbs looks up with a jubilant smile. “Wes!” she exclaims, and Byleth _stares_ as the giant, the very same one from earlier, steps into the shop, pointy pike and all. “Weapons at the door. And wash your hands before you come into my clean shop, you big lug! I have soap, and I’m not afraid to throw it!”

“With what, your soap?” The giant, apparently now identified as “Wes”, does as she says, laying his pike against the wall by the door. “Please don’t throw things at me, I’ll go wash my hands.”

He doesn’t seem to notice Byleth on his way into the back, but Nibbs does. “I know he seems scary,” she whispers conspiratorially, “but I promise he’s actually just a huge puppy.”

“Um,” says Byleth, and that’s all she’s able to get out before the bell jangles again, and Nibbs’s next visitor enters pitchfork-first, bearing what appears to be a basket of goods from the general imports store.

“Nibbs! It’s been so long,” they whine, dropping the pitchfork at the door and immediately draping themself across the nearest shelf. “You won’t _believe_ all the shit that’s gone down lately—I’ve had to replace three windows, _three!”_

“‘Mil, darling, I absolutely _can_ believe it,” Nibbs chatters. “Let me take that basket off you. Wash your hands, lunch is just about ready.”

The giant emerges from the room in the back, wiping his hands off on a dishcloth. “Hey Basil,” he greets, meeting their fistbump with one of his own. “Val’s probably going to be a bit late. Last I checked on her, she was still working on an order.”

“That would be my order,” Nibbs sighs. “I asked her to make me a new kitchen knife. You remember what happened with the last one. I’ve got to pull the cassoulet from the oven, can you go grab the spare chair?”

“The spare… oh.” He disappears into the back, and Byleth only barely processes the crest of Blaiddyd skillfully hidden in the plates of his armor before the bell at the door signifies the entrance of yet _another_ visitor, and really, two of her three fever dream interactions have just manifested in Nibbs’s shop, can she really go three for three—

“Val!” Nibbs cries, setting a dish on the table before running to greet none other than (who else?) the high-society blacksmith. “Oh, I love what you’ve done with your hair!”

“Stop trying to butter me up, Milicent’s going to have my head if I give you any more discounts,” the woman says, wearing the still miraculously unstained blouse and a huge grin to match. “Sorry. I got caught up sharpening your knife. My hands are clean, don’t worry.”

Nibbs pouts at her, but takes the cloth-wrapped knife all the same. "Val, I hope you know I love you dearly and I would take a Thoron to the heart for you."

"You? Little Miss Frail Constitution? Not in a million years."

"I found the spare chair," the giant calls, emerging from the back room with the person from the general imports shop. "But why do we need a fifth—"

The three visitors freeze in place, and Byleth suddenly feels very, very small as they stare her down. "The professor from the academy," the giant blurts.

"Yes."

The pitchfork warrior makes a face. "Consumer of far too much sugar."

"Also yes."

"Can't count coins," says the blacksmith, with only mild amusement.

"That would be me."

Nibbs, in contrast, seems delighted by this whole exchange. "Oh, so you've met Byleth already!" she squeals. "I was hoping I could introduce you guys…"

"I think introductions are still very much in order," the giant says sheepishly.

So they sit, and Nibbs brings out silverware and a bowl of salad and serves them each a heaping serving of pennybean cassoulet. It looks rich and fatty, and for a moment as her plate is handed to her Byleth is reminded of winter nights spent in taverns with her father, eating comfort food like this. There are thin slivers of pheasant and ham scattered among the beans that glisten with oil. It smells good, and when Byleth digs in after Nibbs says a short prayer, she finds that it tastes even better.

"So," Nibbs says, "this is Byleth. She used to be a mercenary, but now she's a professor up at the Officers Academy. She's also my best customer."

"I thought I was your best customer," the giant mumbles.

"It's about the patronage. Byleth got her students to buy my products. I've been out of stock on that lavender oatmeal soap for two weeks now!" Nibbs takes another bite of her cassoulet and waves her spoon around like a baton. "Anyways. Friends, meet Byleth. She's extremely cool."

"Um, hello," says Byleth in an extremely uncool fashion.

“Billet,” the smith says, “like a billet of metal?”

“Oh. No, it’s spelled B-Y-L-E-T-H.”

“Good to know for when I log purchases,” Nibbs comments. “I’ve just kinda been writing you down as Bee because I didn’t know how to spell your name, to be honest.” She grins, turning to gesture at the giant. “Anyhow. This is Weslie Ibbott, my cousin. Knight of House Blaiddyd, pride of the family! He’s in town to help us with the thief problem, and with planting season.”

Weslie nods politely at Byleth. “At your service.”

“This lovely individual is Basil Milieux, innkeeper, pitchfork warrior supreme, brewer of the best hard cider I’ve had in my life.”

“‘Sup,” says Basil, and all Byleth can think is, _oh no, they’re just a smaller, more feral Felix with a pitchfork,_ followed by the horrific mental image of Felix with a pitchfork, or more terrifying yet, Basil with a sword. Neither thought is particularly reassuring.

“And this is Valerie Wayland,” Nibbs concludes, “the sexiest blacksmith in Fódlan and saviour of my kitchen knives.”

“Pleased to meet you," Valerie says. The description is apt; even to someone as uninterested in faces as Byleth, she's beautiful. “Speaking of which, what _did_ you do to the last knife I made you, Nibbs?”

“Oh, y’know,” Nibbs says, shrugging innocently, “it was a necessary business investment.”

“That isn’t an answer!”

“She tried to split soap with it again,” Weslie says, spooning more cassoulet into his plate.

Nibbs gasps dramatically. “I did _not,”_ she proclaims, hand clasped to her heart as though she’s been shot. “I have the cleaver for soap now! I make your meals and break my beloved hand-made knives for it, and this is how you repay me? The _audacity!”_

Valerie sighs. “You slammed a carrot on your chopping board again, didn’t you.”

“I _did_ slam a carrot on my chopping board again. Gee, how’d you guess?”

“Because the only thing you fight on a regular basis is vegetables,” Basil snarks. “Pass the salad?”

Presently, Byleth realizes they are speaking to her. She passes the salad wordlessly, and Basil accepts it with both hands, chucking a substantial amount of salad into their plate before returning it. “Thanks. As I was saying, Nibbs, you only really fight vegetables on a regular basis, so it only makes sense that you’d break another knife over it.”

“That’s only in my garden,” she argues back. “And Wes is here to help with that now, anyways.”

The four of them settle into a pleasant conversation—even Weslie, who is away from Remire more often than not. They seem so comfortable together, laughing and playfully threatening to poke each other as they eat, and for a moment Byleth is reminded of travelling with her father’s mercenaries. To her in the now and the present, it seems like a faraway dream, and yet when she thinks back, it shouldn’t have been more than a few months since she was last by a campfire, hearing the men bicker among themselves over travellers’ stew and ale.

“I have a pot of tomato soup on the hearth,” Nibbs says, smoothing down her skirt as she stands up. “Does anyone want?”

The others chime in various degrees of assent, and she hums. “I’ll find you an extra bowl,” she tells Byleth, still wearing that unfailingly bright smile. “Help yourselves to more cassoulet!”

She disappears around a corner of the kitchen, and almost immediately the atmosphere turns on its heel as all conversation cuts out at the table. Byleth scrapes the last of the cassoulet off her plate, and though she knows it’s too rich it really is too good. “Could,” she tries, and then clears her throat and tries again. “Could one of you pass the cassoulet, please?”

Valerie picks up the crockery by the handle and passes it over. “Thank you,” Byleth says, feeling slightly cowed. The cassoulet is still steaming hot, but Valerie seems immune. “Nibbs… is a good chef.”

Basil grins. “That she is. You’d think she’d get her food pots and her soap pots mixed up, but…”

“She does get her food pots and soap pots mixed up,” Weslie points out. “She’s just good at hiding it.”

“Well, that too, I guess,” Basil concedes. They prop their chin up on one poised hand. “So, Officers Academy, huh? Hell, if it weren’t for your getup, I’d have you pegged as a student.”

“The other professors don’t typically dress for combat,” Weslie says. Some semblance of surprise must show of Byleth’s face, because he allows a small smile. “Class of 1175. Is Professor von Essar still teaching?”

“He sure is,” Byleth says. “Was he your house professor?”

“Aye, and it was bloody hell every day,” he groans. Basil pats him on the back consolingly. “We had weekly quizzes on advances in crestology in addition to our regular assignments. Does he still do that?”

“On occasion.” Byleth skewers a sliver of pheasant fat on her fork. It wobbles for a moment and falls apart. “I’m not a house professor. I teach combat and tactics, so I hear all the gossip from the students. They still learn a fair bit of crestology, just as Professor Casagranda still teaches music from time to time.”

Weslie makes a face, and the others laugh lightly at his expense. “Aren’t you glad you never have to sing in a choir again?” Valerie teases.

“I am _so_ glad.”

At that moment, Nibbs emerges from the kitchen, carrying a massive platter with five bowls of steaming tomato soup. “Let me know if you guys want more, I think I made too much,” she chitters, passing each bowl and a spoon out to everyone at the table in turn. “And eat the cassoulet, you cowards! Pennybean harvest is coming up soon anyways, and we gotta eat up what we have.” She brandishes her spoon threateningly at Byleth, though with the way her hair bobs neatly just past her chin, she just looks like a puppy trying to bare its teeth instead. “You especially! You are a guest in my house and you _will_ be fed whether you like it or not.”

“I _am_ fed. Thank you, Nibbs.”

The tomato soup is creamy, lined with a thin layer of bright-orange oil and sprinkled with dried herbs. “I respect the dining hall staff at Garreg Mach,” Byleth says, “but your cooking would be an instant hit with the students.”

Nibbs laughs nervously. It’s a very strange sound coming from her, and Byleth isn’t sure she likes it. “Oh, it’s really just home-cooked food,” she says. “Besides, aren’t half the students up at the monastery nobility? I’d disappoint them greatly, I think.”

“Many of them long for a home-cooked meal, and most of the students don’t have permission to cook in their own rooms,” Byleth says. “You could sell your soap there too.”

“Ahh, speaking of soap, there’s someone at the door.” Nibbs gets up again, flushed in the face, and readjusts her hair ribbon once before running off to greet whoever’s manifested at the door. “Hiya! We’re just having lunch right now, do you mind coming back in, mmm, half an hour?”

“I think the idea of the monastery scares her a little bit,” Basil admits in a low voice, pushing a chunk of tomato around in their bowl in circles. “Too big, too new. Best not to press it.” They bark out a little laugh. “Hey, we’ve an old friend up there. Maybe you know him?”

“A student?”

“Nah, staff I think. You know a guy by the last name Liddell?”

Byleth blinks. “No, unfortunately.” That’s definitely information she’s tucking away for the future. Maybe she’ll be able to find whoever this guy is through the directory—if Seteth lets her anywhere near it. “Were you close?”

“Aw, darn. He was Nibbs’s neighbour when we were kids.”

“Thank you for your patronage!” Nibbs is telling the customer, who seems to have completely ignored the _CLOSED_ sign. The door jingles loudly when she closes it, not quite slamming it but clearly the closest she’ll get. “Hmph. I’m going to go put the kettle on.”

“I’ll go,” Weslie volunteers. It sounds more like an escape. “Your soup is going to get cold.”

Her eyes soften. “Thanks, Wes.” She slumps into her seat, wherein Valerie puts her hand on the table palm up for her to take. She squeezes it once and lets her hands drop into her lap. “Sorry, Byleth. I don’t think you were supposed to see that.”

“You shouldn’t apologize for things out of your control,” Byleth finds herself saying. She sounds oddly like her father. “You’re a good shopkeeper, Nibbs. It’s like you said. If they can’t respect your rules, then they don’t deserve your service.”

“Preach,” Valerie mutters, mostly into her soup.

“Oh, shush, you.” There’s a scattering of pink across Nibbs’s face, but there’s a smile on her face again. “And you! Don’t flatter me because I’m feeding you.”

“When else am I supposed to do it?”

The others laugh, and the blush spreads. At the end of the day, this merry bunch barely two years older than her reminds Byleth more of her students than herself: they’ve known each other for years, just the way Mercedes and Annette are always talking and how Caspar and Linhardt are inseparable. She really hasn’t met many people around her own age, and those precious few have been mostly her colleagues.

Maybe it’ll be good for her to get out of her own head and make a few friends, here and there.

“Well, that’s the last of the cassoulet we’ll be having for a while,” Nibbs sighs, scraping the bottom of the bakeware for the last bits of beans and meat. “But that’s okay! Planting season is starting up again, and soon we’ll have plenty more pennybeans.”

Basil laughs as they set down their bowl, lips ringed in tomato red. “You can always come raid my kitchen,” they tease, lightly pushing away the three napkins being offered to them, “until the first harvest. Then I want to eat nothing but cassoulet for a week straight.”

“Only if you get me enough fowl and ham for cassoulet.” Nibbs brightens up. “Oh! Byleth, you should come visit next month around this time! The first pennybean harvest every year in Remire is kind of a big deal, to celebrate the gifts of the Goddess and all that.”

Valerie rolls her eyes fondly. “It’s just a thinly veiled excuse for everyone to party,” she clarifies. “Nibbs makes cassoulet with new beans, Basil brings out their best cider, Weslie… tries to be in town for the celebration.”

“I try my best,” he mumbles.

“You really do.” Valerie flashes a brilliant smile at Byleth, one that’s almost as disarming as it is warm and welcoming. “But yes, weather permitting, do stop by. There’s way more to Remire than just this little shop.”

“Hey!”

It’s as though they’re trying to adopt her into their little circle. Byleth has a notion that the table was _meant_ to seat five, that the hastily-dusted fifth chair hauled out of storage wasn’t always kept there. Maybe they just need her to fill an empty space.

But Nibbs had been quick to dismiss the idea of going to the monastery, to reunite with someone she’s apparently known since childhood, and Basil said not to press it. If they’re looking for a new friend, Byleth can give them that, and besides, when was the last time she had friends her own age, anyway? There’s no harm in befriending a bunch of, for lack of a better term, village kids watching her with starry-eyed wonder, just as she watches them lean into one another with a speck of envy in her heart.

(And every mercenary knows you don’t turn down a free mug of hard cider.)

“I’ll swing around,” she decides, and the resounding cheer from the other four unfailingly puts a smile on her face, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _*dabs with gravitas*_  
>  hello my dear friends i am ~ a l i v e ~ and freshly out of nanowrimo! what we have learned this year is that apparently i can manage midterms for five courses while churning out 50k words of fic AND have the brain cells left over to play ffxiv. in lieu of this we are (hopefully) returning to the every-other-Thursday update schedule, since past me was wise enough to prepare in advance for this update. thanks, past me.  
> i gave Nibbs some friends because 1) it didn't feel right to put her alone in a populated village and 2) i jokingly turned my friends into characters and then they grew backstories and would not leave me alone until i wrote them into the story. so here's a shoutout to Meal, Dar and Roi, who inspired Basil, Valerie and Weslie in that order!
> 
> * * *
> 
> do you want to see deleted scenes from this chapter? do you want to read up about pennybeans and discuss their economic impact on fodlan? do you want cassoulet? i can't help you with that last one, but for the other two, [join the discord!](https://discord.gg/WW2WmCt) we're a tidy little server and we commiserate over our FEH summons!


	22. monomyth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth's class takes a dive into the Valla Cycle, and her cat takes a dive out of the pegasus roost.

“Have you met other gods before?”

Sothis snorts. _“Do you_ think,” she quips, _“I would survive to tell the tale?”_

Byleth looks up from her book. “Well, yes,” she says, “I presume you’d be civil enough not fight them to the death.”

 _“Fair enough.”_ Sothis ponders for a moment. _“I will be honest with you, I was not “alive” by your human standards for a very long time. How long does scripture say I roamed Fódlan before my demise?”_

“Uh…” Byleth scoots back in her seat, and the cat in her lap meows defiantly. “Sorry. Need to get something in the drawer.” She withdraws a copy of the Book of Seiros, pilfered from the cathedral storerooms and carefully kept under wraps. She’s not sure why; she does teach at a religious institution, after all, and it would bring many people great joy to see her reading the words of the Goddess. Maybe it’s that she _doesn’t_ want to be seen reading it. “It really doesn’t say.”

 _“Then we shall ignore it.”_ She floats up to Byleth’s desk, leaning on some ethereal platform in midair as she looks down into the open book. _“By your human means, I “lived” in Fódlan for perhaps not two millennia before my death. In that time, I never sought to leave Fódlan, and no other creatures of power equal to mine own approached Fódlan, so no, I cannot say I met any other gods.”_ She snorts. _“Though suffice to say I was quite lonely until I thought to bring forth my children.”_

Byleth looks up at her. “About that. Are they your biological children? Did you physically give birth to them?”

Sothis makes a face. _“Nothing quite so gruesome as your human ideas of childbirth. Yes, they were born of my blood, and made of my person, but ‘twas more refined than that. A form of creation magic, you could say.”_

“First rule of magic is that you can’t make something from nothing.”

 _“Daft child, did you not hear me say they were born of my blood and made of my person?”_ She smacks Byleth upside the head with an errant head. It actually stings a little, like the ache after being hit with a Thoron. _“Why do you ask? And what are you doing now, poking your nose in the business of a former god?”_

Byleth raises an eyebrow. “Lesson planning.” She points at the book, spread open with words marked in wipe-away grease pencil. “I think my classes will quite enjoy it.”

 _“You mean your nine-o’clock class,”_ Sothis snorts, but leans down to help anyway.

* * *

"In studying the Valla Cycle," Byleth says, "we have to recall that there exists a very fine line between the myths and the truth. What we know of the occurrences during the Hoshidan-Nohrian wars is told to us in artifacts, contemporary accounts, and of course the Cycle itself. Miss Pinelli?"

"I've never actually read the Valla Cycle," Leonie says with a frown, and a good number of her peers nod in agreement. It takes Byleth a horrific moment to remember that while the Cycle is renowned universally in oral folklore, the manuscript itself is still a massive epic, a document with a word count far over a hundred thousand. "And I don't exactly think it's casual reading material, is it."

"I have yet to read it in its entirety," Byleth admits. "We can, however, discuss the events on a loose timeline, as well as the historiography." She rummages in her pocket and finds a piece of chalk, with which she draws a long timeline on the blackboard. "There are three separate versions of the Valla Cycle, called "cantos". It is widely believed that the first two, typically called the Dusk and Dawn Cantos, were written as pro-Nohr and pro-Hoshido propaganda in later centuries, possibly in response to each other. They each altered the events of the Valla Cycle in different ways, so we'll discuss the most widely-accepted version instead.

"The Final Canto was written by the Vallite songstrel Shigure, whose youth was in the last few years of the Nohr-Hoshido wars. We have definitive evidence of his existence, but... many of the figures in his tales, not so much." She shrugs and writes down _inconclusive_ on the other blackboard. "Starting with his heritage. Throughout all three versions of the Valla Cycle, there are two major players who have major roles in the narrative, and yet we cannot find conclusive evidence that they lived." Under the header, she writes two names. "One of them is Corrin, ruler of Valla."

Edelgard frowns and raises her hand. "Professor, were relics of Corrin not found in Valentia some forty years ago?"

"Of their family." Byleth inhales and does her best impression of Hanneman’s lecture voice. _"And so dragonborn Corrin was wed to Silas of Nohr, and on their wedding day the skies bloomed into a gold dawn."_ A few of the students hide their laughter; a few don't even bother hiding it. "We have the memoirs of Silas of Nohr, and his children Sophie and Kana, but Silas only refers to his spouse as "beloved", and Sophie's memoir chronicles her travels to lands beyond for the most part. Furthermore, we can’t confirm whether divine Kana’s memoir was that, or a tale from later centuries, seeing as they seem to occupy a corner of the Vallite pantheon of their own."

"The entirety of the Valla Cycle is highly romanticized," Claude points out. "I mean, Shigure straight up claims to be a demigod."

"We cannot say that definitively either." Byleth puts the other name down on the board. "Azura, Lady of the Lake, yet another figure of mythical renown. A common theory is that, given her epithet, Azura was a deity of the Vallite pantheon alongside the First Dragons.” She purses her lips. “I… personally don’t believe that theory, or the theory that dragonborn Corrin was a myth. Dragons once walked Fódlan, too, and the power of song is known to rejuvenate. It’s not unlikely that her mythical ability to quell dragons with her voice alone was… not in fact myth.”

At the word _song,_ everyone slowly turns to Dorothea, whose expression has drifted into something between dreamy and stormy. “We perform an opera at the Mittelfrank once every year, around Saint Indech Day,” she says, “loosely based off the personal accounts of Shigure of the Gray Waves, as well as the Final Canto.”

The Black Eagles seem to all perk up at this. _“Revelation,_ is it not?” Ferdinand comments. “I recall watching it three or four years ago. Did you play a part in it, Dorothea?”

“Five years ago, I sang the part of Princess Elisabeth,” Dorothea says, puffing up with pride. “Ever since then I’ve had the honour of singing the part of Lady Azura.”

“Miss Arnault,” Byleth says, filling out names on the timeline, “would it be rude of me to ask you to perform your part as Azura for us?”

Dorothea gapes, and Leonie takes the opportunity to cup her hands around her mouth. “You can do it, Dorothea!” she yells, and in the spur of the moment the girls in the class all band together to cheer her on. From Mercedes clapping excitedly to Marianne’s soft smile, there isn’t a student that isn’t calling for their resident songstress to reprise her role.

And so Dorothea takes her place at the pulpit, adopting a dramatic position. “Annette? Could I please get an A?”

Annette hums a note, sustaining it until Dorothea matches her voice perfectly. “Thank you,” she says, and begins.

Byleth has heard the opera _Revelation_ once in her life—her father brought her to the Mittelfrank once when she was much younger for Saint Indech Day. She hadn’t put much thought into it, never having really been one for music, but in hindsight the virtuoso soprano singing the part of Azura was most certainly Manuela. The part is performed with an air of mystery, reflecting the veil of mysticism that lies draped over songstrel Shigure’s words. Azura, who brought empires to their feet with her voice and dance—if such a figure did exist, what was her life like?

“Sing with me a song, of silence and blood,” Dorothea sings, voice echoing through the room. The song floods out like tidal waves, and Byleth can only imagine the power she could command at the centre of a stage in the role. “The rain falls, but can’t wash away the mud. Within my ancient heart dwells madness and pride, can no one hear my cry?”

Still playing the part, Dorothea freezes at the apex of the song, and the class seems to hold their breath as she inhales, exhales. “You are the ocean’s gray waves, destined to seek life beyond the shore just out of reach,” she sings, voice brought down soft and gentle. “Yet the waters ever change, flowing like time; the path is yours to climb… for you are the ocean’s gray waves.”

The class explodes with applause, and even Byleth has to stop her chalkboard endeavours to smile and clap. The girls are all practically screaming, having found solidarity in admiration for the performance. Dorothea flushes a little, but sketches a dramatic bow and gives her peers several high-fives on her way back to her seat.

"Shigure splits the Valla Cycle into three volumes," she says, dragging her chalk down the timeline and splitting it into three. "The first volume concerns dragonborn Corrin as a child of Garon of Nohr, sent to the border with Hoshido as a means of punishment for defying their father's orders. They were subsequently intercepted by Hoshidan forces, who brought them to Castle Shirasagi in Hoshido. There, they were reunited with their biological mother, Queen Mikoto, and informed that they had been kidnapped by Garon in youth. It's also around here that they are introduced to Azura.

"Queen Mikoto is later assassinated, which throws the two kingdoms into turmoil. This is also the event in which Corrin is given their epithet of "dragonborn", as they activate their ability to transform into a dragon." Byleth points her chalk at the clock on the wall, which has the circle of crests engraved into its bronze surface. "You see why many historians, Fódlan or otherwise, tend to relegate their existence as purely mythical now.

"Up until this point, all three cantos remain the same: the Nohrian and Hoshidan forces meet on the battlefield, and Corrin is caught between their adoptive and biological families. The Dusk Canto has Corrin joining the forces of Nohr, the Dawn Canto has them join Hoshido, and the Final Canto says that they joined neither." She starts to scribble down names on either side of the timeline, and marks them with little sigils of the two kingdoms to differentiate the two. "This marks the beginning of the second volume of the Final Canto, where Corrin and Azura flee into the Bottomless Canyon into the lost nation of Valla.”

The list of names stand out in what feel like two completely different languages, and most likely were. On one side, the Nohrian royals: Alexander VI, Camille of the Black Rose, Lionel the Redhearted, and Elisabeth. On the other, the Hoshidan dynasty: Ryoma the lightning-king, Hinoka, Takumi, and Sakura, lady of Spring. “We have found evidence indicating that all eight royals existed, as well as a lively cast of retainers that saw to their needs,” Byleth says, “but to this day we can only confirm the names of the kings, seeing as they were peers and equals.” She erases out letters with the side of her fist quickly, and fills some in where she needs to. “Most of the Nohrian royals are popularized differently in the Valla Cycle, so for simplicity’s sake I’ll be referencing to them by those names.

“In the lost kingdom of Valla, Azura and Corrin converse about the true instigator behind the assassination of Queen Mikoto, as well King Garon’s cruelty. This would, of course, be the Silent Dragon, Anankos. Corrin’s retinue leaves the Bottomless Canyon with the goal of uniting the banners of Nohr and Hoshido against Anankos and the fallen Valla. Over several confrontations, they are able to turn both royal families to their side, predominantly through the machinations of Lady Sakura and Lady Elise, and with all their intel combined they are able to determine that there is something _severely_ wrong with King Garon’s command.”

Chalk in hand, she begins to scribble out a rough map of the mythical continent. “I’ve only seen a copy of the Valla Cycle once, mind you,” she says, “so don’t take my word as gospel. But if we place Hoshido here by the sea and Nohr to its west, then the Bottomless Canyon should be…” Her chalk makes a terrible shriek as she drags the flat of it down the board. A few students make noises of discontent behind her. “Right here. It served as a portal to Valla, though not the only one, and only for a few years at a stretch.”

She pinpoints a few other key cities and settlements: Notre Sagesse, Castle Shirasagi, Windmire, Cyrkensia. “Now, let’s take some sides,” she says, looking over the class. “For simplicity’s sake, I’ll assign you each factions. Eagles will take Hoshido, Deer take Nohr, and Lions will represent dragonborn Corrin’s retinue.” She taps the timeline. Let’s assume we are at the point right after Azura and Corrin emerged from the Bottomless Canyon. The Nohrian and Hoshidan forces have retreated to their respective capitals, and are reconvening.

“For this exercise, I want you all to discuss what your next move is. Remember, all of you are at a disadvantage, and none of you know who the enemy is except Azura and Corrin. Nohr is still under King Garon’s command, while Hoshido has just lost their queen and protective border. Azura and Corrin are stranded with very little help and no means to explain the truth to anyone outside Valla.” She puts her hands on her hips. “Five minutes discussion time among yourselves, then we’ll see if you made the same decisions that these figures of legend did.”

Her entire class _scrambles_ at the chance to play myth, and Byleth allows herself a smug moment of satisfaction as Sothis laughs in delight from the depths of her mind.

* * *

For once, the Golden Deer common room is peaceful after class. Almost too peaceful, in fact, but Lorenz welcomes the change; Professor von Hrym left a sizeable amount of homework to complete, and Professor Eisner left them a few readings from the Valla Cycle on top. Maybe it’s thanks to that alone that the room is so quiet, since many have retreated to the peace of their own private rooms to chip and toil away at the reading.

Even the resident noisemakers are engrossed in their work. Hilda has commandeered a copy of _Excerpts from the Valla Cycle_ from the library and has her brow furrowed as she rifles through the pages in her nice chair. Claude is at the chalkboard, sketching and erasing lines on a rough drawing of Nohr and Hoshido transposed directly from the book itself.

He’s good at what he does, loath that Lorenz is to admit it. It’s as though the boy was born to look back at history and say, _here is what they did, and why._ Lorenz barely had any chance to edge in a word during the discussion, and what few he did were paltry compared to his peers’ contributions. “King Garon was a madman,” Claude had said, “possessed by the Silent Dragon. King Xander, on the other hand, just wanted his family back. We have to split the command in half.”

This, as it turns out, was the right call to make, and the Deer got the performance points and the Professor Eisner smile for it. Claude hadn’t even looked smug, just content with his direction the way one is after a good meal—peaceful, even. It was like his entire life’s work had led up to that one moment of cracking the Valla Cycle and the motivations behind the Nohrian throne.

But a good historian does not a good leader make. The key is to _learn_ from the experiences of one’s predecessors; what good is it if you can only recite their achievements and never apply the principles to your own nation? A two-way battle turned three-way turned two-way once more sounds like a Fódlan extended into some distant unified future, one that Lorenz only hopes he can witness in his lifetime: a Fódlan led under the Leicester banner, people governed by wisdom and experience.

“Shoot,” Claude mutters at the board. “Hey Lorenz, do you mind checking something from the excerpts for me? It’ll be quick, I promise.”

“I will do what I can,” Lorenz replies in half a voice. He clears his throat and tries again. “But you may have to give me the chapter title, or number.”

“I think… _The Veiled Kingdom,_ should be in volume three. The passage where the party has just jumped into the canyon, after the assassination of Scarlet of Cheve, and they’re attacked by the forces commanded by the shade of Arete.”

It’s such a specific detail to grab in on, considering all the other exploits chronicled in the Valla Cycle, that Lorenz is certain Claude must have read through the entire Cycle at least once or twice. It also helps him find the passage in question quite quickly. “Chapter eighteen, indeed of volume three,” he says, flattening out the book with one hand to trace the words with the other. “Shall I start from the beginning of the battle?”

Claude grins. “That’d be perfect, thanks.”

 _“But Corrin had no time to mourn her passing, for no sooner had they reunited with their kin did the forces that lay hidden in the dark march upon them,”_ Lorenz reads. _“As the Bottomless Canyon filled with the shades of Valla, Lady Azura spoke: lo! There in the distance, our true enemy stands behind a shielding sigil. Behold the source of her power: Dragon Veins numbering eight, sequestered away in forts! My brethren, we must separate to activate them. Stay you all safe, and may we end this battle with no more fallen.”_

 _“Then dragonborn Corrin turned to the woman shielded in the sigil,”_ Hilda cuts in, apparently being on the same page or having flipped to it quickly, _“and said: who are you? And the woman, shrouded in shadow within, laughed.”_ She clears her throat, and continues in a high, mincing voice. _“On behalf of my king, I welcome you to our hidden kingdom.”_

Lorenz winces. “Must you read the part of Arete of the Storm so?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault I’m no songstress like Dorothea,” Hilda says with a pout. Her lip paint, no doubt pristinely applied, is smudged ever so slightly onto her porcelain skin. Rumour has it that her skincare routine rivals Lorenz’s own. “Anyways, it’s your line.”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

Before he can read another line, though, the door opens to a very distressed Lysithea, with an even more distressed Marianne in tow. “One of the monastery strays is stuck,” Lysithea says, “and we don’t know how to get it down.”

“Where?” Claude asks, setting his chalk down. “If it’s really high up, I can fly a wyvern up to get it down.”

Marianne shakes her head. “It’s up by the pegasus roost,” she whispers, “and it’s too afraid to get down. Oh, the poor thing…”

“Don’t you worry, Marianne,” Hilda says, rushing to gather the other girl into her arms, “we’ll get the cat down for sure!”

Then she gives Lorenz and Claude the Signature Hilda Look, which really means _you guys are going to do this or I am going to throw you off the Goddess Tower myself._ “Let’s go,” she says, and Lorenz can do nothing more than slip a bookmark into his current page and follow after her.

For the most part, the Garreg Mach pegasus flock lives in the rafters of the building adjacent to the cathedral. As it turns out, this works excellently because there’s plenty of room up there for the pegasi to land comfortably—a miniature loft of sorts, even. Twice a year an architect and a mage are called in from Enbarr and Fhirdiad respectively to make sure the beams still hold up, and the sigils protecting them haven’t faded too much. Once a month the knights of Seiros send one of their newer recruits on “straw duty” to clean out the filth and replace the straw in the loft.

Unfortunately, this makes it also an excellent place for cats to nap. “I heard Linhardt wanted to test it out,” Hilda says, using the dramatic gasp she reserves for cheering Marianne up. Briefly, Lorenz bemoans being relegated to one of her lackeys. “But it’s too high up, and he knows better than to bring a wyvern into the pegasus roost.”

Marianne sniffles. “How’d the kitty get up there, then?”

“Probably up the windows,” Lysithea says. “There’s a bunch of ledges that jut out that I’m sure a cat could stand on.”

The cathedral is still fairly populated for a weekday evening; the clergy present don’t question their little group rushing down the aisle and making a beeline for the building in the back. They’re not even the only ones—Annette and Flayn are there, the latter making cooing noises at the ceiling in what seems to be a misguided attempt to get the cat down, while Raphael and Caspar animatedly discuss building a human ladder. 

The cat, on the other hand, is tucked up in one corner of the rafters, just out of the way of kicking hooves and beating wings. A flash of blonde hair against dark uniform tells Lorenz that Ingrid is up there, apparently having given up on school rules in favour of rescuing the cat. She’s trying to coax the poor thing out of its hiding spot, but with no way to land and the cat clearly terrified of the pegasus, she hasn’t had much luck. All it does is hiss and make increasingly distressed sounds at the pegasi.

“Is there any way we can get the pegasi down first?” Claude suggests. “If we can’t get the cat to come out of its hiding spot, maybe we can make it safer first.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea.” Hilda pats Marianne twice on the back consolingly. “Now, how do they let the pegasi out for school exercises and stuff?”

Flayn points at a wide door to the side. “We can’t let the pegasi out now,” she says, delicate features painted with a frown, “because the wyverns aren’t corralled. And my brother would have our heads if he were to find out we’ve been trying to get a cat out of the pegasus roost.”

So they’re back to the drawing board, yet again. Ingrid dips down on pegasusback and slides off neatly, lips pressed into a thin line. “Has anyone got a cloth bag?” she asks, patting the pegasus’s rump. “I could try bagging the cat, though it would be rather hard given how dark it is up there.” She looks stricken. “It’s a black cat, too.”

“Misfortune falls,” Lorenz mutters. “Or rather, in this case, it climbs.”

The ten of them stand there staring at the rafters of the building, where the cat continues to yowl. The pegasi aren’t exactly happy with their feline intruder, either. One particularly gruff one huddles in the corner where Ingrid had been flying just minutes ago, and kicks out at the little spot in the corner. The cat, to its credit, avoids this quite gracefully.

The door opens and closes behind them, and at first Lorenz thinks it’s another one of their peers, but then something mews, and he turns to find their professor, glaring up at the rafters with a plate of something fishy in hand and the ragdoll and Siamese following behind her. “Professor Eisner,” he says, and the rest of them gasp and turn. “Have you been apprised of the situation? A cat has gotten stuck in the rafters.”

“Oh, she’s not stuck,” Professor Eisner mutters, striding forward. Her cats trot after her— _two_ of her cats, markedly missing the bombay, a _black_ cat. “She’s just hungry and lazy.” She sets the plate of fish gruel on the windowsill, and cups her hands to her mouth. “Eagle! Do you want dinner or not?”

And as they all watch in equal parts wonder and horror, the bombay (she named it Eagle?) leaps gracefully out of its corner, across two rafter beams, and crosses the ledges of the tall window like it’s spiral-lacing a pair of stays, before elegantly landing on the windowsill to immediately dip its face into the plate of food. “Dummy,” Professor Eisner mumbles, giving the cat a scratch behind the ears.

The dumbfounded wonder wears off, and they all rush in at once, each blabbering the same questions. “You named your cats!” Hilda cries, as Flayn tugs on her sleeve, asking “does my brother know you keep cats? _Is this why your class keeps saying not to tell him things?”_

“Okay, one at a time, everyone.” Professor Eisner raises her hands in mock surrender, and they quiet down and back off. “My father named them, really, for what they like to do. This one,” she says, pointing at the bombay, “is named Eagle because she likes to fly. She takes running leaps off my bed and goes for the food on my desk. It’s starting to be a problem.”

She reaches down and hauls the ragdoll off her boots. “This is Lion, because he has a big mane and he looks like a lion roaring when he yawns. He’s also the biggest of the cats.” Marianne passes the Siamese to her, and she sets both cats up on the windowsill to join Eagle in eating. “And this is Deer. He’s, uh, got antlers.” She gestures to the tips of the cat’s ears, sticking upright. “I thought it was fitting.”

“Incredible,” Lorenz says, “you’ve domesticated three of the monastery strays.”

“Well, they did most of the domesticating themselves.” She runs an affectionate hand down Lion’s back, glossing over the fluffy tail. “And to answer your question, Flayn, your brother does _not_ know I keep cats. They are allowed in and out of my room as they please, but if you come visit during my office hours there’s a fairly good chance they will be there.”

Flayn’s eyes light up. “Cats,” she whispers, looking fit to vibrate out of her skin.

“Thank you all for trying to get my dumb cat out of the rafters,” Professor Eisner says, picking up Eagle despite its (her?) mewls of protest and slinging the cat over her shoulders. “Did anyone see you all in here?”

They all shake their heads.

“Good. That means you’re not in any trouble.” Turning to her cats again, she scoops up Deer with one hand. “Come on, now, you big baby.”

Lysithea perks up. “Oh, Professor, can I borrow Lion for a bit? I promise I won’t be long.” She markedly does not elaborate, and glares at everyone around who clearly wants to ask.

Professor Eisner shrugs. “He’ll find his way back eventually. Just don’t be upset if he leaves, he hasn’t had much dinner yet.” She shakes her head. “They’re spoiled rotten. I need to stop feeding them.”

And with her plate and her cats, she’s off, Eagle still mewling in protestation.

“Well,” Claude says, “that was… certainly something.” He stretches lazily, joints popping softly as his hand goes impossibly high over his head. “Say, any of you want to join us in our dramatic reading of the Valla Cycle?”

Ingrid and Annette bow out on the grounds that they’re reading it with the other Blue Lions; Caspar remembers he has more homework, and runs off to do that. Flayn, on the other hand, joins them in the Golden Deer common room with a grin. “I hadn’t the foggiest that such fun things happened in Professor Eisner’s class,” she says. “First you have cats, and then you’re reading the Valla Cycle? As an assignment?”

“It’s not even really an assignment,” Lorenz insists. “Professor Eisner doesn’t leave us true _assignments_ the way the other professors do, save perhaps our monthly reports. Why, we’ve never written more than a page’s worth of content for her class at a time before!”

“And besides, if it were an assignment, you bet Lysithea would be here with us, reading,” Claude adds. “Now, where were we?”

Lorenz finds his copy, the page meticulously kept with his bookmark. “There are more roles, now,” he says. “Hilda, I believe you were our Lady Arete of the Storm, and I read Lady Azura of the Lake. Miss Flayn, shall we cast you as our dragonborn Corrin?”

The others cheer as Flayn blushes, and they all settle into their roles and bring the myths to life.

* * *

The chapel behind the cathedral is quiet again after the sound of laughing students subsides. The meagre pews are largely unpopulated, save for one boy sitting in the fourth row slumped over in the dark, silver hair turned gold and green and pink in the dying glow of the sun through the stained glass of the Goddess.

A creak of the door; it’s probably just one of the clergy, coming in to collect something for mass. They won’t bother a student in deep prayer, especially one with tears running down his cheeks, one whose entire world has been turned upside down in a matter of days. _I need to know, Professor,_ he’d said, and it was the truth, nevermind how painful it might be. _I need to know why Lord Lonato has turned his blade on the Church._

The footsteps stop at his side, but the movement doesn’t. Something squirms in the half-light of the sunset, casting a halo of moving shadows on his uniform. Ashe looks up to see Lysithea, stony-faced with Professor Eisner’s ragdoll cat in her arms. “His name is Lion,” she says, voice low but firm as she deposits the cat in his lap. “He might leave because he hasn’t had his dinner yet. I can open the door for him if you want to.”

 _Do you want me to stay,_ she’s asking. Giving him a choice, the way Professor Eisner did, the way she still does because she’s promised that _up to the very moment we leave you are free to change your mind, and I will do everything to make sure of it._

It’s nice to know he’s not alone.

“Yeah, that’d be good,” he croaks, and tries very hard not to cry as Lysithea sits down beside him and runs her fingers through Lion’s fur. The cat purrs and purrs in his lap, and is kinder than any fate brought upon him as of lately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to another episode of "marg's writing is heavily influenced by what she's reading in english class", in this episode we discuss her love-hate relationship with the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms  
> but really after we studied the Epic of Gilgamesh in first year i charted out Fates (or at least Revelations) and as it turns out, it perfectly fits the monomyth/hero's journey! which was really neat and also took up space on my fridge for several months. maybe someday i'll release the whole analysis if i can find it again, haha  
> and now the cats have names! these were their names from the beginning of my plans, to play off my godparents naming their Siamese cat Monkey. i crowdsourced locations for where Eagle might get stuck and my friend told me his family's cat got stuck in a chicken coop, and since i haven't introduced a chicken coop in this fic yet i kinda just shovelled Eagle into the pegasus roost. dw she's fine  
> next chapter might be a bit delayed because of the holidays and all that jazz, so if it is, happy early holidays everyone, and i hope your 2020 ends on a good note!
> 
> * * *
> 
> i'll probably stop advertising it after this, but [join the discord!](https://discord.gg/WW2WmCt) i can offer custom colour roles and bunny gifs

**Author's Note:**

> find me on Twitter @MargDaemonelix if you want to see me vaguepost about This Is How You Lose The Time War, on Instagram @margaritadaemonelix if you want to see me literally never post anything, or on Instagram @matchamargarita if you want to see my crochet endeavours!


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